It happened to be on a Sunday that we visited Broeck, and the villagers were at church. We proceeded there to see them in their Sunday garb. There was nothing peculiar in the costume of the men, who were all very neat and tidy; but all the women wore that unhappy head-dress, common throughout Holland, which seems to have been invented to deprive the female sex of its chief natural ornament, for it entirely conceals the hair.
This head-dress, probably invented of old by some dame of high degree who had lost her hair, is worthy of a particular description. A hoop of gilt metal encircles the head. This hoop is about an inch and a quarter in width at the forehead, increasing to two inches at the back of the head. This fillet is surmounted by a white cap, fitting tight to the skull, and trimmed with broad folds of lace, while a long strip of the same fabric hangs down over the shoulders. Chased gilt ornaments an inch and a half long, and an inch broad, are attached to each temple, producing very much the effect of the blinkers with which the bridles of carriage-horses are furnished. Three little locks of silk hang down over the eyes. This head-dress certainly has no pretensions to taste, but has the advantage of being subject to no change in fashion. It is expensive enough, costing generally from sixty to eighty Dutch guilders, and even some hundreds in the cases of rich people, who ornament their coifs with pearls and precious stones; but these are heir-looms, descending from generation to generation.
Many women absolutely place a structure of straw, with a broad brim bent upward in front and behind, on this wonderful cap when they go out, and this queer affair they call a hat. I was astonished to find that girls and women endowed by nature with beautiful hair subjected themselves to this foolish fashion—the motive could scarcely be vanity.
In the remaining costume of the women I found nothing very worthy of remark. On Sunday they all wear gowns of black merino. The fashionable world dresses as it does every where else; and some of the citizens’ wives paid homage to the present fashion so far as to wear a stylish bonnet over their hideous Dutch caps.
On the following morning, my indefatigable Mentor, Herr van Rees, took me to the Hague to see his family.
The Hague, a city of eighty thousand inhabitants, does not look so ancient as Amsterdam, but is very much cleaner, principally from the fact that the Hague is not such a manufacturing and commercial city as Amsterdam. Like all Dutch cities, it is intersected by numerous canals. The Hague is the seat of government and the abode of the court, the foreign embassadors, and officials generally. The king has several palaces, not remarkable either for size or for their architecture. They look merely like handsome private houses. The old chief palace, built in the town itself, is a fortress surrounded by moats, and built on a low mound or redoubt. The heavy gates, the tower, and especially the dark color with which it is stained all over, give this place an appearance of antiquity.
About the churches there is not much to be said. The cathedral is a very handsome building, dreadfully disfigured by being surrounded by a number of mean-looking little houses.
The picture gallery, here called the “Museum,” owes its celebrity chiefly to two pictures, which are reckoned among the great masterpieces of the Dutch school—a cattle-piece in life size, by Paul Potter, and Rembrandt’s “Doctor,” or “Anatomist.”
The cattle-piece is so true to nature, so warm in tone, and powerful in execution, that one almost wonders, after a lengthened contemplation of the work, to see the bull, the sheep, the cow, and the shepherd remain so still and motionless, expecting them to begin to move.
The other picture is just as extraordinary in its way, but I thought the subject less attractive. The surgeon is dissecting a corpse. He has just laid open the palm of the hand and the arm sufficiently to expose the whole system of veins and nerves, and he is explaining these to his audience. The calmness of the operator, to whom the business is familiar, and the rapt attention of his hearers, some of whom are hanging upon his words, while others gaze fixedly upon the dissected subject, are admirably rendered; in my poor opinion, this picture is the great painter’s masterpiece. Besides these two great paintings, there are many charming pieces by Steen, Ostade, Rubens, and others.