randuwa: Vermeer is Back

Sunday, November 19, 2017

Vermeer is Back

So why did my friend and I choose to go to the National Gallery of Art today?

To see the latest blockbuster exhibition titled: "Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting". Disclaimer, I did have the good fortune of being in a relationship with the man who was the office manager of the special exhibitions department of the National Gallery of Art back when the original Blockbuster exhibition of Vermeer paintings occured at the Naitonal Gallery of Art in 1995-96. It was cache enough to get me into the opening reception, and then I returned twice again. The exhibit was the largest number of Vermeers ever assembled in one exhibition to date (21) and was then topped by itself when it moved to the The Hague in the Netherlands and they picked up two additional paintings not sent to the NGA.

Given that, and the fact that it was Vermeer compared to his contemporaries and the specific form of "genre" painting, I expected a couple of Vermeers and lot of other "stuff". After all, there are only 34 works on the planet assigned to Vermeer, and a couple of those are lost. So it was a great delight to discover that 10 Vermeers were included in this leg of the exhibition. There are 12 in the catelogue, but two were not part of this third and final leg of the show. The exhibition originated at the Louvre in Paris, and then moved to the National Gallery of Dublin in Ireland before crossing the Atlantic to show here in Washington, DC.

Here are images of some of the Vermeers. It was also a crowded exhibition, which I really like--never bad when art draws crowds. They were taken with my little poorly understood (by me) camera, so clearly, like all art I photograph, they are poor representations of the actual works--images online of which would be better viewed if you are really liking them. The two images of the men are the only images of a man alone that he painting and both are Anton van Lowehook, a friend and the scientist who invented the microscope. In one he depicted as a Geographer and in the other as an Astronomer. The final image of the woman holding the balance is what I consider his masterwork. I don't think I'm alone.

"Woman with a Lute" circa 1663-64,
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

"Woman with a Pearl Necklace" circa 1662-65
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preußischer, Gemäldegalerie

The next two paintings are the only two Vermeer works with a single male subject. It is agreed that the model depicted here is non-other than Anton van Leeuwen Hook, who was a friend of Vermeer's and also the inventor of the microscope.