Around Leeuwarden: a visit to the Ceramics Museum

May 1, 2012

WEATHER: cloudy and warm

After a fine breakfast at our hotel, we walked across town to the train station to buy our tickets to Deventer for tomorrow. Train tickets in the Netherlands are more expensive than in France and there is an extra charge (6 euros each) for bikes, unless they are folded. We planned to fold our Bike Fridays into their carrying bags and pack our panniers in the duffels for the 1 1/2 hour trip. In contrast to yesterday, the streets of Leeuwarden were completely deserted, except for garbage trucks picking up the loads of rubbish left from the celebrations of the day before.

We were staying in Leeuwarden today to visit the Keramiekmuseum Princessehof, the official museum for ceramics in the Netherlands. It is housed in a 17th century palace, the home of Marie Louise, dowager princess of Orange. During the Dutch 'golden age' the wealthy Friesian traders brought back Chinese and other Asian ceramics, which found their way into the hands of private collectors, and were later donated to the state. Some are extremely rare and valuable, and are on display at the museum along with Dutch delftware and other European ceramics. The collection is world class, and we took our time going through it for several hours before and after lunch. The well laid out building was beautifully uncrowded, and once again the entrance fees were covered by our museumkaarts.

We were very impressed with the extent and quality of the collection.

The dowager's dining room, belonging to Marie Louise of the House of Orange.

One of the impressive donated collections, filling shelf after shelf with representative Delftware pieces.

The woman depicted on this vase was actually Dutch and managed to sneak into Japan at a time when it was closed to foreign women. Her likeness has been copied over and over and appears on countless other ceramic works.

A large coffee urn, made for the European market.

The museum even featured an herb garden in the courtyard.

In the late afternoon, our heads full of pottery, we headed for the Fries Museum, which highlights the history of Friesland and is currently housed in several historic buildings. We found that most of the museum is closed in preparation for their move to a new building next year, and we went quickly through the cursory exhibits still open, including one about the life of Mata Hari, perhaps Leeuwarden's most famous citizen.

By now we were museumed-out, and returned to our hotel room for a rest before going out for an inexpensive saté dinner at a pleasant quiet cafe.

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