Johannes Vermeer (1632-75) was a Dutch painter little known in own time. Though trained as an artist, his conversion to Catholicism on marrying at 21, in a strongly Protestant country, was problematic. Luckily he inherited an inn and an art-dealing business on his father's death in Oct 1652. Yet money remained a problem; he had 11 children with his wife Catharina to support, and had no studio or students! So besides his art nothing of him remains eg contracts, letters.
Vermeer, Girl with a Flute
c1668
National Gallery of Art,
Vermeer left a small oeuvre, so his work later became prized treasures. He died at 43, in debt and buried in a pauper’s grave. It is believed that he only produced 35+ pictures in total, despite the sneaky efforts of forger Han van Meegeren in the 1930s to increase that number.
The Mauritshuis' 1996 exhibition did well when it brought together 23 of the Dutch master's paintings.
Entrance to Rijksmuseum 2023
The initial spark for this 2023 show came when the Rijksmuseum’s curators realised that the Frick Collection, which has not allowed its 3 Vermeers to travel for over a century, was closing in 2023 for renovation. So Rijksmuseum immediately borrowed its 3 Vermeers: Officer and Laughing Girl (1655), Mistress and Maid (1666) and Girl Interrupted at Her Music (1660). Then a team of curators and restorers closely examined the 7 Vermeers in Dutch possession, focusing on his artistry, designs motivations and creative processes. They collaborated with Hague’s Mauritshuis and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.
Museums and private owners in 7 countries lent masterpieces for the show, including most of the intimate, lit domestic scenes for which Vermeer was well known. London’s National Gallery sent Young Woman Seated at a Virginal; Paris’ Louvre sent The Lacemaker; and Dublin’s National Gallery lent Woman Writing a Letter With Her Maid. Other artworks came from Berlin, New York and Tokyo. Some paintings were local. The Rijksmuseum’s 4 Vermeers are on show, and the artist’s famous Girl With a Pearl Earring, was just down the road at Mauritshuis in The Hague.
It took much hard work, but in the end only 9 known works by the artist were missing Art Newspaper noted: Boston’s Vermeer has been stolen in 1990. N.Y’s Metropolitan refused 3 works due to their fragility, as did Buckingham Palace said about its Vermeer. Museums in Abu Dhabi, Vienna and Brunswick Germany just refused! And The Guitar Player (c1672) was guarded by English Heritage who claimed the travelling days are over. Finally one from the Louvre is on loan elsewhere. Fortunately the Rijksmuseum said that after meticulous scientific research, it confirmed the attribution to Vermeer of 3 works whose authenticity had been questioned.
Now art lovers can see the best collection of Johannes Vermeer's paintings altogether. Of the 35+ paintings experts attribute to the artist, the Rijksmuseum exhibited 28. The Rijksmuseum already had 4 Vermeers in its own permanent collection, partnered with several international institutions, including Mauritshuis The Hague; Musée du Louvre Paris; New York’s Frick Collection and Metropolitan Museum of Art, to gather them into a super exhibit with 28 of the artist’s 35 known works.
The exhibition, Feb-June 2023, includes the treasures we know eg Girl with a Pearl Earring 1664 (Mauritshuis The Hague), Geographer (Städel Museum Frankfurt), Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid1670 (National Gall Ireland Dublin), Milkmaid 1658 (Rijksmuseum) and Woman Holding a Balance (National Gallery Art Wash DC).
Visitors will also see some lesser known works eg Young Woman Seated at the Virginals (1670). And the newly restored Girl Reading a Letter at the Open Window 1657 (Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister Dresden) is new to us. Almost all Vermeers are now in museums, but in 2004 Virginals left private hands and was auctioned at Sotheby’s for £16m. One of 4 Vermeers in the National Gallery of Art Wash D.C, Girl with a Flute c1668 showed a girl clutching a gold flute. Experts who analysed the painting said it lacked Vermeer’s typical precision and the top paint layer contained atypical coarse pigments. Was it made by a Vermeer associate? There were no surviving records of any workshop or assistants, so the Rijksmuseum reversed the National Gallery’s ruling and reinstated the painting.
By the mid-1800s, his baroque works seemed timeless, because passion, suffering and sex were excluded from his art. Even in the View of Delft, the poised figures were unexpressive. The Dutch middle class wanted small, realistic images of their lives, images where education, exploration, science, business and Protestant virtues were honoured. Most Dutch paintings were descriptive of that era, of prosperous society in the newly independent Netherlands. And Vermeer’s figures were often set across a foreground of curtains, tiles and furniture. His only male subject was his friend Antonie van Leeuwenhoek. The distorted foregrounds were recreated by scholars and their illusion met Vermeer’s need to isolate his subjects from the viewer.
Vermeer
The Milkmaid, 1658
The Milkmaid, 1658
Rijksmuseum