Clingendael – Daniël Stopendaal + Nicolaes Visscher, ca. 1690

THE BAROQUE CLINGENDAEL OF PHILIPS DOUBLET

“De Heer van St. Anna-Lands Hofstede Genaamt Clingendaal bij ’s Graven-Hage; in ’t geheel van ’t Westen na ’t Oosten te zien.” [The country estate known as Clingendael of the Lord of Sint-Annaland, near The Hague; seen in its entirety from west to east.] Etching made by Daniël Stopendaal, published in Amsterdam by Nicolaes Visscher II, c. 1690. Coloured by a later hand. Size (plate mark): 39.7 × 47.8 cm.

This bird’s-eye view depicts Clingendael from the west, with Wassenaar and Leiden on the horizon. The house forms the centrepiece of a rigorously symmetrical country estate, surrounded by long tree-lined avenues and rectangular gardens. The extensive numbered key guides the visitor, as it were, through the grounds: from the entrance gate and approach road, past the gardener’s house, coach house, stables and courtyards, to the house itself, the parterres, ponds and fountains, the orangery with its winter garden, the pleasure pavilion, maze, orchards and berceaux, green galleries covered with foliage.

The combination of broad vistas, closely clipped hedges, water features and formal flowerbeds gives the layout its monumental character. Clingendael appears not as an isolated country house, but as a carefully composed domain in which architecture, gardens, water and the surrounding cultivated landscape form a unified whole. The elevated viewpoint reveals both the scale of the estate and the relationship between its various buildings.

The title refers to Philips Doublet (1633–1707), Lord of Moggershil and Sint-Annaland. He acquired Clingendael in 1680 and subsequently modernised the estate in a Baroque style influenced by French classical garden design, with extensive box hedges and symmetrical patterns. Doublet was married to Susanna Huygens, daughter of Constantijn Huygens, and through this family circle maintained close connections with The Hague’s cultural and intellectual elite.

Since 1982, Huys Clingendael has housed the Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael.

Price: Euro 495,-