municipal museum of leiden (stedelijk museum de lakenhal )

Here you will find an overview of dutch painting in the golden century, mainly painters from Leiden. The building is per se a big attraction. It is a shame that it has not a cafeteria, only coffee.

Leiden is the city where Rembrandt van Rijn was born. Leiden was also the cradle of one of the most famous Dutch painting schools: the Leiden school. So it’s no surprise that Leiden has a museum dedicated to painting. “Not a very popular one”, I thought, noting that a limited number of reviews had so far been made by the Tripadvisor folk, and most of them by Dutch people. With this prejudice in mind, I expected to see some sort of provincial museum showing secondary works. But I was terribly wrong. The museum is a gem, and aroused my enthusiasm right from the first room: the artistic level of the paintings is very high, information on the paintings and on the painters is abundant and exhaustive (both in Dutch and in English), there is a very robust theme connecting the material exposed (namely the development of the Leiden painting school and the history of the city) and the setting is historically evocative. The exhibitions. On the ground floor the history of the Leiden painting school is narrated, starting from Cornelis Engebrechtsz (the initiator of the Leiden school; an amazingly good painter), continuing with the works of such big artists as Rembrandt, Lucas van Leiden, Frans van Mieris, Jan Lievens and many others working with them, and concluding with a selection of good paintings of the 19th and 20th century. The paintings displayed on the second floor deal with the making of drapes, main economic activity of Leiden for several centuries, and those of the third floor narrate the political and historical life of the city, with emphasis on the famous siege of the year 1574. On the whole, this is a well designed and likable museum, where the visitor is pleasantly guided by the hand through the culture and history of Leiden. During my visit the museum hosted a temporary exhibition of the works of another illustrious son of Leiden: Gerrit Dou (pronunciation “heritt dow”, 1613-75) At first he was a pupil of Rembrandt, but he rapidly became one of the most reputed (and expensive) painters of his time. Strangely enough, he is not very popular with the modern public, although he is an absolutely stunning artist; his paintings – mainly portraits and interior scenes - are an epitome of what is normally meant by “Dutch painting”: he caught the poetic essence of the everyday life, permeated the space with light and dedicated maniacal attention to the details. It was obvious for me to draw a parallel with Vermeer who, in the same years, was producing his masterworks in Delft, only 25 kilometres away from Leiden. The museum is right in the centre of the city, no more than 400 metres away from the railway station. It is in a historical palace which overlooks a nice canal and was built in 1640; the palace formerly was the main seat of the Leiden drapes trade (“de Lakenhal” means “the Hall of drapes”). The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the weekdays, and from 12 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the weekend; it is closed on Monday. Admission is 7.50 €, with reduction to 4.50 € for elders. Infrastructures include: toilets, cloak-room, lifts, a minuscule bookshop where – alas - only books in Dutch language are available. It is possible to take pictures, although sometimes the light is not sufficient for a good result. The museum is accessible to disabled people. The personnel speaks good English. The visit can take one hour and is very rewarding.

This is a very fine art gallery within a beautiful building. There is some great early religious art as well as items from the Golden Age, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and some fabulous twentieth-century art too. The building was the cloth hall and the exhibition on the cloth trade in the city was excellent, with some good interpretations of historical spaces. I also really enjoyed the history of Leiden through pictures and the display of the hidden church too. Good shop, good facilities (as with nearly everywhere in The Netherlands there are good lockers) and we really enjoyed out visit. Well worth the entrance fee, but with a Museumkaart (which I cannot praise highly enough) it was free.

We took the train to Leiden as Amsterdam was so hot and busy when we visited. This museum was fantastic, went to see the Flemish Masters, the Gerrit Dou exhibition was a bonus. And Leiden was lovely - quiet compared to Amsterdam!

Between its permenant exhibition and the Gerrit Dou exhibition this museum offers visitors some great learning opportunities. Learn about the rise and fall of Leiden's golden age of fabric production and marketing. See cloth samples and weaving equipment as well as other historical (and elegant) artifacts. Learn about the labor intensive, and not so romantic, aspects of fabric and cloth production. Plus, you can enjoy paintings from the Leiden school of art. Museum staff were friendly and helpful. There's a self-service refreshment corner for taking a break. In general, I liked the museum's quiet, 'historical' ambience.

The museum has a good collection of 17th century paintings and also gives information about the history of the town. However, I feel that the art section overshadows the history section. More should be made of that.

We went primarily to see the Leiden Collection of New York and were a bit disappointed that it filled only one room. The Gerrit Dou paintings, owned by a NY collector, are very fine, and there are also five works by artists associated with Dou, including a charming early work by his best-known and most talented pupil, Frans van Mieris. The permanent collection includes a very early and not especially attractive Rembrandt, a handful of works by Dou and Van Mieris, and several very nice works by a noted Leiden landscape painter, Jan van Goyen, as well as a few attractive paintings from the late Middle Ages and northern Renaissance. There is also an interesting historical exhibition on seven centuries of the cloth trade in Leiden. The Lakenhal, which is housed in a beautiful 17th-century building, is a "must visit" destination for people keenly interested in painting and other objets d'art. Others will find it less engaging.

For the people that don´t go to museums a lot this museum is not that interesting. The museum looks nice, in the old building. A lot of small rooms. The paintings itself tell the story of Leiden, but it was not very interesting. Fun too see, if you have time left.

A beautiful historic building featuring a collection of local painters mainly 17th century plus temporary exhibitions.

OK, I admit I went in just wanting to see Rembrandt's works and was disappointed only to see a single, rather early one. Some rooms were temporarily closed though so there may be more.Anyway, I decided to relax and just see whatever else was there and suddenly in what felt like a tiny kitchen corridor, I came across the Dutch Fijnschilder painters - and particularly the work of Gerrit Dou. I'd never heard of him before but I then spent 45 minutes tracking down some more of his work around the museum and enjoying the amazing attention to detail - which did not however result in a loss of individuality or eccentricity in each work. Look for the old man sharpening his quill. Breathtaking!

Beautiful building housing a vast art collection including paintings by Dutch Masters such as Jan van Goyen. It is worth doing the audio tour (included in the ticket price) for more information on the art on display.

Ever have difficulties to get 5 boys at the age of 9 quiet and turn them into little lambs?Bring them to museum De Lakenhal in Leiden.Let them sit in front of the painting 'The last judgement' by Lucas Van Leyden.There is so much to tell just by looking at that painting.Is there good, is there bad? How do you see that?It is also fun to copy the persons on a painting and create a 'live' image.

Goodmorning! Thank you very much for the flattering review you wrote after visiting Museum De Lakenhal. We are very pleased knowing you enjoyed your visit. It's a pity you were under the impression that it's not allowed to take photographs of the artworks, because it is actually allowed! Apart from the temporary exhibitions we welcome our visitors to take pictures of our collection and share them with their friends and family. We hope to see you back soon, maybe for the exhibition of 'Gerrit Dou. The Leiden Collection from New York'? Read more: http://lakenhal.nl/verwachtinhetmuseum.php Best wishes,Milou van OeneCommunication and PR Museum De Lakenhal

For the not so seasoned museum visitor, the Lakenhal museum seems a little bit disconnected. The temporary exhibition on utopia is extensive and tries to guide the visitor through the various phases in the early 20th century. I say "tries" because it is not always easy to follow, even with the written guide in hand. The permanent display has some very interesting historical bits about the recapture of Leiden by the geuzen, apparently translated as beggars, from the Spanish in the late 16th century. Overall, not a spectacular museum, but certainly worth a visit on a rainy November day. At 12.50 the admission (including surcharge for Utopia) is unfortunately rather pricey.

The museum is actually two museums in one. The art, including a very good Lucas van Leyden, makes up one part, whilst the history of Leiden and its seige is set out in the 'attic'.