Mesdag, Hendrik Willem (1831-1915)

Dutch painter. He was the leading marine painter of the Hague School, and his style to some extent returned to 17th-century Dutch traditions. In 1881 he painted a vast panorama (120 m/395 ft in circumference) of the fishing village of Scheveningen, which is housed in a building especially designed for the purpose in The Hague.

Mesdag was a banker until he was 35, when he took up art and studied under Laurence Alma-Tadema in Brussels. Mesdag made an important collection of paintings, mostly of the Barbizon and Hague schools, now housed in the Mesdag Museum, The Hague.