Hans van der Meer
Funeral Prince Claus

Van der Meer’s perspective on the theme of landscape returns in his images of the funeral of Prince Claus, on October 15, 2002, commissioned by de Volkskrant newspaper The funeral cortege travelled from the Noordeinde Palace in Den Haag to the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft.

Because Van der Meer photographed the cortege from a distance, the more common close-ups of mourning members of the royal family are absent; their role is taken over by a typical Dutch suburban housing development, Ypenburg, in the background. This annex to Den Haag had just been plunked down in the former cow pastures.