Vermeer Newsletter no. 50

Hi,

I hope you have had or will have the chance to visit the Vermeer retrospective at the Rijksmuseum. I was frankly overwhelmed but will spare you my impressions here. Suffice it to say that the exhibition was sold out (450,000 tickets) only days after the opening.

For those particularly interested in the exhibit, I've just launched a new website page that gathers relevant information, including press coverage, a FAQ and updates on collateral news and events.

I would like to thank the 8,000 plus people who have visited the first two YouTube videos I published on February 8, which give my personal take on two of Vermeer’s paintings (the Leiden Collection Young Woman Seated at the Virginals and the NGA Girl with a Flute.  I am hard at work putting the finishing touched on the Girl Reading Letter at an Open Window, whose recent restoration has been heatedly contested.

Hope you find something of interest below

My best,
Jonathan Janson

BTW, this is the is the 50th Vermeer Newsletter. I'd like to thank all of you have subscribed. Suggestions and criticisms  are warmly welcomed.

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in brief:
1. Vermeer exhibition catalog
2. Public airing of Dutch TV Vermeer documentary
3. Rijksmuseum ticketing information for the Rijksmuseum Vermeer exhibition
4. Vermeer’s Girl with Pearl Earring returns to the Mauritshuis
5. Essential Vermeer Rijksmuseum Vermeer exhibition webpage
6. Have you seen the Rijksmuseum Vermeer exhibition or want to know something more about it? Then why not share your impressions and questions with the Vermeer community on the Essential Vermeer Facebook page?
7. Vermeer contemporary Jacobus Vrel exhibition at the Mauritshuis

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1.
Vermeer Exhibition catalogue

VERMEER
Gregor J M Weber (Editor), Pieter Roelofs (Editor)
2023
200 color illustrations
Amazon.com <https://amzn.to/3O6FJs5>

Published to accompany the once-in-a-lifetime exhibition at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, this is the first major study of Vermeer’s life and work in many years.

Johannes Vermeer’s intensely quiet and enigmatic paintings invite the viewer into a private world, often prompting more questions than answers. Who is being portrayed? Are his subjects real or imagined? What is shown on the map on the wall? What news does a letter bring?

Seemingly unaware of the viewer, each subject―the milkmaid, the guitar player, the girl with a pearl earring―occupies an intimate and private space. Vermeer’s paintings, with their enigmatic interiors and masterful handling of natural light, bring us into a closed, internal world, but with many tantalizing points of contact with the outside world. What details do we know of Vermeer’s personal life? How did it affect his painting style?

This is the first major study of Vermeer’s life and work for many years, bringing together diverse strands of his professional and private life in Delft in the seventeenth century and examining important research that has revealed new ways of looking at his paintings.

Accompanying a major exhibition at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, this volume sheds light on every one of Vermeer’s known paintings, thirty-five in all, with a wide selection of contextual illustrations, commentaries, and up-to-date research by the most distinguished international Vermeer scholars. Vermeer will be required reading for lovers of the most admired of all Dutch seventeenth-century painters and one of the world’s greatest artists.
Amazon.com (English) - https://amzn.to/3O6FJs5>

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2.
Public airing of Dutch TV Vermeer documentary

Dicht bij Vermeer (Close to Vermeer)
<https://www.docmakers.nl/films/dicht-bij-vermeer>

produced by Docmakers
director: Suzanne Raes
executive producer: Lieke van den Ouwelant
producer: Ilja Roomans

In the run-up to the largest Vermeer exhibition ever, a number of Vermeer curators and experts set out in search of what makes a Vermeer truly Vermeer. In doing so, they get inside the head of the painter to analyze the decisions he made.

trailer:
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNzKFUGeTqg>

tickets and viewing schedule in Dutch cinemas (March 9 to March 23):
<https://cinedeli.nl/film/dicht-bij-vermeer/>

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3.
Vermeer exhibition ticketing information

Within days of the opening of the Rijksmuseum Vermeer exhibition all tickets were sold out. Moreover, Friends Membership, which for the duration of one year allows members to enter the Rijksmuseum and all its special exhibits without need to book a start time, has been suspended due to the fact that Membership limits have been met.

Regarding ticket availability, as on March 1, the FAQ sheet of the Rijksmuseum website states:

“To ensure an enjoyable visit to the exhibition, the number of tickets is limited. Currently, there are no more tickets available. We do not have a waiting list. We are continuously looking at ways to give more people the chance to see this exhibition.”

<https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/whats-on/exhibitions/vermeer/faq>

In a reply to a question posted on the Rijksmuseum Twitter page (4:49 PM · Feb 25, 2023) they answered that a new update via the Rijksmuseum website will be provided on 6 March.

<https://twitter.com/Waldeule1/status/1629497594438189058>

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4.
Vermeer’s Girl with Pearl Earring returns to the Mauritshuis

Vermeer' Girl with a Pearl Earring will be be removed from the Rijksmuseum Vermeer exhibition. It is slated to return to the Mauritshuis, on April

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5.

Essential Vermeer webpage dedicated to the Rijksmuseum Vermeer exhibition

A page dedicated to the current Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam,, including basic information, a list of all the paintings, press coverage and a few travel tips.

<http://www.essentialvermeer.com/misc/vermeer-amsterdam-restrospective.html>

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6.

Vermeer Rijksmuseum retrospective goes social on the Essential Vermeer Facebook page

<https://www.facebook.com/Essential-Vermeer-133691276693957/>

Dear Vermeer community,

I consider myself incredibly lucky to have visited the Vermeer retrospective in Amsterdam multiple times following the opening on Feb. 10. It was an overwhelming experience to sy the least, and two weeks later  I’m still having a very hard time processing it.

I'll get things straightened out sooner or later but in the mean time why not let me (us) know what you think too on the Essential Vermeer Facebook page. I’ll keep this post pinned on top for the duration of the exhibition for anyone who has visited the exhibit and would to like share their impressions questions, doubts, criticisms and photographs —not too many photos though. If you haven’t been able to attend and would like to say something anyway, don’t worry, your welcomed too.

Sincerely yours,
Jonathan

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7.

Exhibition of Vermeer's contemporary Jacobus Vrel

Vrel, Forerunner of Vermeer
Mauritshuis, The Hague
16 February–29 May, 2023
<https://www.mauritshuis.nl/en/what-s-on/exhibitions/jacobus-vrel/>

from the Mauritshuis website:
Almost everyone knows Johannes Vermeer’s quiet interiors and that little street he painted, but few people know that artist Jacobus Vrel (active c. 1640-1660) was already producing scenes of this kind before the paint was dry on Vermeer’s first masterpiece. The Mauritshuis shares the story of this mysterious painter in Vrel–forerunner of Vermeer.

The exhibition will tell the story of how Vrel was rediscovered in the 19th and early 20th century using a selection of his finest works. Two extraordinary paintings from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna will be coming to The Hague. One is Woman at the Window (see left, 1654), the only dated work by Vrel.

This exhibition can also be visited in Paris, Fondation Custodia, 17 June 17, 2023–September 17, 2023.