* Please note: this talk is in English, organised by the International Friends
We have great pleasure in inviting you to our Golden Midwinter Evening, which has become a highlight of our season. Jane Choy, Art Society lecturer and art historian, will present a fascinating talk on the theme of music in the Mauritshuis. Prior to Jane’s talk, we will enjoy a short recital by two talented Royal Conservatoire students, Sara Nakade and Mitra Muijen, playing baroque cello and baroque violin respectively.
Music is a recurring subject throughout the Mauritshuis, featured in paintings, frames, and architectural details. Jane will explore these intriguing connections and, together with the musicians, take us back in time to discover historic melodies and depictions of musical merriment.
Programme
18:00 Friends and guests meet in the Brasserie for drinks and canapés 19:00 Recital by Sara Nakade and Mitra Muijen in the Nassauzaal 19:30 Interactive lecture by Jane Choy, followed by Q&A session 20:15 Evening concludes
Cost: €30 International Friends & Dutch Friends, €35 Guests, €15 Students
Joe Eagan Comedy Productions brings stand-up comedians to The Hague, guesting Branoul approximately 10 times per year with shows entirely in ENGLISH.
Always a fun mix of pro headliner comics, local talents, stars of tomorrow and stars of yesterday.
Note: Each show has approx 3-4 different comedians and a lovely MC host from Canada, Ireland or the UK guiding you through the evening. The line-up per show is published on our Facebook events page.
Dates: Sat, Jan 17, Feb 7, Feb 21, March 28, April 18, May 23, June 13
Time: Two showtimes to choose from each date at 19,00 & 21,00
Henry Flowers by the Light/Light Collective which will be performed on Wednesday 21 January in Zaal 3 is part of the Het Nationale Theater’s non-Dutchie Series of handpicked performances by a variety of national and international artists for which you do not need to understand Dutch.
Everybody wants Henry Flowers to cut off his fingers.
Henry is very against this idea. He’s fond of his hands the way they are. He needs them for important things… Like sculpting.
His father thinks the fingers are a distraction. It’s better to get rid of them. They’re good for nothing.
It’s time Henry becomes a proper citizen and stops twiddling his thumbs.
Henry Flowers is more than a play, it is a surreal rite of passage—a theatre of blasphemy, transformation, and devotion. It weaves together music, light art, and a monumental descending sculpture of a hand.
About Light/Light Collective
Visually striking, sonically complex, and emotionally uncanny—Light/Light Collective invites audiences into dreamscapes where meaning emerges through intuition, atmosphere and sensory experience.
The collective brings together light artist Ulysse Fontaine, sound artist and composer Mateusz Godlewski, and visual artist/performer Omer Van Soldt in a richly interdisciplinary exploration of contemporary theatre.
Their collaborative process begins with a strong emphasis on audiovisual imagination, treating light, sound, and gesture as narrative forces in their own right. This immersive approach becomes the groundwork from which text and story arise organically, resulting in surreal, absurdist dialogues that challenge conventional dramaturgy.
Henry Flowers Wed 21 Jan 20:30 – 21:15 Zaal 3, – De Constant Rebecqueplein 20-A, The Hague
On Thursday, January 15th,Points of Lightwill launch in the Grote Kerk in The Hague. This light art project will transform the monumental church building into an abstract composition of light and sound, in which the architecture takes center stage in an artistic way.
Magical atmosphere for everyone Folkert Blaauw, director of the Grote Kerk: “With Points of Light, the Grote Kerk takes on a whole new experience. Light and soundscapes showcase the architecture in a way you’ve never experienced before. The screening is free, because we want everyone to be able to discover the church in this light. It will be a visual spectacle!” Light pulse technology Points of Light uses a Lidar 3D scan, a technique that uses light pulses to create highly accurate three-dimensional models. This data forms the basis for projections that visualize the vaults and structures of the choir in rhythmic patterns of light, combined with specially developed soundscapes.
From dark to light Visitors are invited to slow down and experience the space in a new way. The project demonstrates how a historic monument can shift from darkness to light, offering a different perspective on one of The Hague’s oldest and most iconic buildings.
Dates and times
Points of Light can be seen on January 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 29, 30, and 31, daily from 5:00 PM to approximately 9:00 PM. The projection lasts 15 minutes and is free.
Points of Light is an initiative of the LiGHT-UP collective, consisting of Jan Willem Campmans, Jaco Schilp, Sem Schreuder and Merijn Meijers, in collaboration with Epson, The Greanery and the Grote Kerk Den Haag.
The Mauritshuis is temporarily lending the painting “Girl with a Pearl Earring” by Johannes Vermeer to the Nakanoshima Museum of Art in Osaka, Japan. This is due to the Mauritshuis’ closure for renovations* in August and September 2026. ” Girl with a Pearl Earring” is one of the world’s most famous paintings and is a key reason for many visitors to visit the Mauritshuis. The work is only loaned in very exceptional circumstances.
Special circumstances This last happened in 2023, during the major Johannes Vermeer retrospective at the Rijksmuseum. The upcoming closure period offers another such exceptional opportunity. A request came from Japan—one of the primary sources of international visitors to the Mauritshuis—to temporarily display the painting there.
Exhibition in Osaka The Nakanoshima Museum of Art in Osaka is presenting the Girl with a Pearl Earring during its renovation. The presentation is organized by the Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan’s largest media houses, with which the Mauritshuis has collaborated for several years. The Asahi Shimbun has decided to support the Hague museum as a project partner for the next four years.
Martine Gosselink, General Director of the Mauritshuis: “The Asahi Shimbun has been a highly valued partner of our museum since the Mauritshuis’s renovation between 2012 and 2014. The Asahi Shimbun organizes various exhibitions annually with foreign museums around the world. We are deeply honored to collaborate with them on the presentation in Osaka in 2026. We, in turn, welcome thousands of Japanese tourists each year who adore Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring . For the Mauritshuis, the Girl’s journey is therefore a special opportunity to share her with the Japanese public, perhaps for the very last time.”
Mauritshuis Education Center The Mauritshuis will use the Asahi Shimbun’s contribution to finance this year’s renovations and the furnishing and operation of the building at Korte Vijverberg 4, which the museum opened on December 1, 2025. One of the museum’s most important projects there will be the opening of the new Mauritshuis Education Center (working title) in 2028. The museum is still seeking sponsors and corporate partners for this center.
The Girl’s Previous Travels During the Mauritshuis renovation in 2012–2014 , “Girl with a Pearl Earring”toured the world. The traveling exhibition made a significant contribution to the renovation’s financing. In Japan, the painting was on display at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum and subsequently in Kobe. Afterward, the work traveled to the United States for the exhibition “The Masters of the 17th-Century Dutch Painting from the Mauritshuis .” A total of 2.2 million visitors saw the traveling exhibition during that time.
*The Mauritshuis is closed to the public from Monday 24 August to Sunday 20 September 2026 inclusive
Text: Mauritshuis
Image: Mauritshuis (Johannes Vermeer, Meisje met de parel, c. 1665)
The new movie year is here. Enjoy the best stories and the finest extras during the dark days with family, friends, partner…or even enjoy on your own!
January gets off to a great start with a wide selection of top films that will quickly make you forget the winter blues. The month is all about suspense, spectacle, and high emotions: from disaster scenes and devastated landscapes in Greenland: Migration to dark visions of the future and moral dilemmas in the science fiction thriller Mercy. In 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, a legendary world is reopened, while Send Help and Shelter draw you into merciless survival stories full of intrigue, paranoia, and action.
With surprising, moving films like Rental Family and powerful arthouse titles like Hamnet , January is the perfect month to start the new movie year well.
28 Years Later – Part 2: The Bone Temple @2025 Sony Pictures Releasing (via Universal). All Rights Reserved.
Greenland: Migration– January 8
Five years after a comet has destroyed most of the Earth, John Garrity (Gerard Butler) and his family are forced to leave the safety of their bunker in Greenland. They must once again brave the most extreme weather conditions and embark on a merciless journey across a devastated Europe, searching for a new place to build a safe life.
Greenland Migration @ 2025 All Rights Reserved.
Rental Family – January 8
A lonely, down-on-his-luck American actor (Brendan Fraser) living in Tokyo starts working for a Japanese “family rental” company, playing various stand-in roles in other people’s lives. Along the way, he discovers unexpected happiness within his new blended family.
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple – January 15
The world Danny Boyle and Alex Garland created in 28 Years Later is both expanded and completely turned upside down in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple . In this new installment of this legendary story, Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) forms a shocking new friendship that could change the world forever. Spike (Alfie Williams), after meeting Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell), is thrust into a nightmare from which he can’t escape.
Mercy – January 22
In the near future, a detective (Chris Pratt) is on trial for the murder of his wife. He has just 90 minutes to prove his innocence before his fate is determined by the advanced AI judge (Rebecca Ferguson) he himself championed.
Hamnet – January 22
Hamnet is an arthouse film that tells the powerful love story that inspired Shakespeare’s timeless masterpiece, Hamlet. Starring Jessie Buckley (Wicked Little Letters, The Lost Daughter) and Paul Mescal (Gladiator II, Aftersun).
Send Help – January 29
Two colleagues are stranded on a deserted island as the sole survivors of a plane crash. On the island, they must put their old conflicts behind them and work together to survive. But ultimately, their struggle devolves into a disturbing, darkly comic power struggle full of intrigue and survival instinct.
Shelter – January 29
In Scotland, the mysterious Mason (Jason Statham) leads a reclusive life. But when he saves a young girl from drowning during a violent storm, his courageous rescue attracts the attention of violent figures from his past. They launch a relentless manhunt for the duo, resulting in a deadly game of cat and mouse. Starring Jason Statham, Bill Nighy, and Naomi Ackie.
Pathé is the first and largest cinema brand in the Netherlands, founded in Paris in 1896 by true pioneers of film: the Pathé brothers. Their aim was to share the wonderful world of film with as many people as possible. Throughout the Netherlands, Pathé has 30 locations, 253 screens and 1,900 employees. Through its wide range of films, livestreams of opera, sports and gaming, among others, the latest techniques such as IMAX, 4DX, Dolby Cinema and ScreenX, and business events, Pathé creates special and unforgettable cinema stories for all.
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Pathé is a partner of The Hague Online, and we receive cinema tickets in exchange for sharing monthly updates and links on our website and in our enewsletter. Text is provided by Pathé in Dutch and translated into English by The Hague Online. Images are provided by Pathé. Text and images may not be copied and shared without permission.
