[from press release] [click on any of the pictures for larger versions]
Het Loo Palace
Appearance: 10 personal stamps in 10 different designs, marked with ‘1’, the denomination for items up to 20g in weight destined for delivery in the Netherlands
Design: studio026, Velp
Photography: Het Loo Palace
Item number: 820058
With the Het Loo Palace issue, PostNL highlights the reopening of Het Loo Palace in Apeldoorn this year after a thorough renovation. The stamps focus on the personal rooms of queens who lived and worked in the palace. The stamp sheet comprises ten personal stamps in ten different designs. Each stamp is marked ‘1’, the denomination for post weighing up to 20g sent to an address within the Netherlands. The design of Het Loo Palace was created by studio026 in Velp.
The ten stamps included in the Het Loo Palace stamp sheet feature cut-outs of colour photographs of the following 5 rooms in the palace:
- Mary Stuart’s bedchamber
- Sophie of Württemberg’s dressing chamber
- Emma of Waldeck-Pyrmont’s sitting room
- Wilhelmina of Orange-Nassau’s sitting room and
- Juliana of Orange-Nassau’s bedroom.
Each room is featured on two stamps, one with an overview picture and one with a detail picture. The details depicted are
- a flower holder (Mary)
- a mirror (Sophie)
- a clock (Emma)
- a table centrepiece (Wilhelmina) and
- a suitcase (Juliana).
The overview picture and detail picture are placed alternately above and below each other. Each detail picture is framed by a geometric line pattern, the basic shape of which is derived from a characteristic pattern in the room in question. This basic shape also returns 
in the four corners of the picture on the overview stamp.
On the sheet edge, adjacent to the detail pictures, the first names of the female residents are printed in capitals. Adjacent to the overview pictures, the names of their spouses are printed in lower case, using initial capitals. A dotted line connects both stamps via the right-hand perforated edge of the stamps. Next to the names of each queen there is a monochrome portrait; an adaptation of a painting that belongs to the collection of Het Loo Palace. The name of the Het Loo Palace (Paleis Het Loo) stamp sheet can be found along the top edge, across the entire width of the stamp sheet. The lower left tab features the logos of PostNL and Het Loo Palace. The right-hand side of the stamps features a brief description of what we are looking at. The bottom of the sheet edge features an explanation of the issue.
Het Loo Palace in Apeldoorn was built in 1686 as a hunting lodge for Stadtholder William III and his wife Mary. After their coronation as King and Queen of England, the residence was converted into a palace and expanded with 4 pavilions and a large garden.
Het Loo Palace was used as a summer residence and working palace for successive 
generations of the House of Orange-Nassau until 1975.
After an extensive restoration to bring the palace and gardens back to their 17th-century state, the building opened as a museum in 1984. The palace was renovated again between 2018 and 2022 and it was reopened 15 April.
The Het Loo Palace stamps highlight the personal rooms of five female residents of the palace: Mary Stuart (married to King Stadtholder William III from 1677 to 1695), Sophie of Württemberg (married to King William III from 1839 to 1877), Emma of Waldeck-Pyrmont (married to King William III from 1879 to 1890), Wilhelmina of Orange-Nassau (married to Prince Hendrik of Mecklenburg-Schwerin from 1901 to 1934) and Juliana of Orange-Nassau (married to Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld from 1937 to 2004).
The principal characters on the stamps are, in chronological >order,
- Mary Stuart
- Sophie of Württemberg
- Emma of Waldeck-Pyrmont
- Wilhelmina of Orange-Nassau and
- Juliana of Orange-Nassau.
Said stamp co-designer Anne Schaufeli, ‘For each lady, we chose a room you can visit in the palace, furnished the way it was during their time. Juliana, for example, lived there as a child, but not later on, which is why you can only visit her bedroom. In contrast, since she stayed there the longest, many of Wilhelmina’s rooms have been restored to their former state … It was difficult to choose, they are all beautiful images.’
The same team of Schaufeli and Huub de Lang designed the Netherlands from the Air (2022) Historic Motorcycles (2021) Old postal routes (2020) and 150 years of the Red Cross in the Netherlands (2017) stamps for PostNL.
Technical Details:
Stamp size: 30 x 40mm (wxh)
Sheet size : 170 x 122 mm (wxh)
Paper: normal with phosphor print
Gum: gummed
Printing technique: offset
Printing colours: cyan, magenta, yellow, black
Print run: 8,000 sheets
Appearance: sheet with ten different personal stamps marked ‘1’, the : denomination for post weighing up to 20g sent to an : address within the Netherlands
Design: studio026, Velp
Photography: Het Loo Palace
Item number: 820058
