The Huis ten Bosch at The Hague and Its Formal Garden (View from the East)
by HEYDEN, Jan van der, Oil on panel, 39 x 55 cm
This panel and its pendant showing another view belongs to the six autograph pictures by Van der Heyden which are known to represent the Huis ten Bosch (House in the Wood) and its property. The Haarlem painter turned architect Pieter Post designed the Huis ten Bosch about 1645 as a summer residence for Amalia van Solms, wife of the Stadholder, Prince Frederick Hendrick. The house was conceived as a ‘villa suburbana’ at the eastern end of the Haagse Bos (Hague Wood), about a mile and a half east of the centre of The Hague.