International Vermeer Events of the Recent Past

Vermeer's "Love Letter " Travels to Paris

The Dutch Golden Age: From Rembrandt to Vermeer
October 7, 2009 – February 7, 2010
Pinacothèque de Paris

The Pinacothèque de Paris will host an exhibition will put on an outstanding Dutch works of art, an ensemble of over one hundred and thirty pieces, including about sixty paintings, thirty graphic works, ten etchings as well as ten objects to give an ample representation of carved ivories, tapestries, china, wooden miniatures, silverware, glassworks and furnishings.

Vermeer’s late little Love Letter, will be on display.

Vermeer's Milkmaid exhibited in New York

Vermeer’s Masterpiece,”The Milkmaid”
Sept. 10 - Nov. 29, 2009
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Organized to honor the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s historic voyage to New York from Amsterdam, the show, Sept. 10 through Nov. 29, 2009 will focus on old masters who, like Vermeer, were active in the period of exploration, trade and artistic flowering that occurred during the Dutch Golden Age in the 17th century.

The Louvre "Astronomer" Travels to Minneapolis

The Louvre and the Masterpiece
Art, Minneapolis, Minnesota
October 18, 2009 - January 19, 2010

The Louvre and the Masterpiece will explore how the definition of a "masterpiece," as well as taste and connoisseurship, have changed over time. The exhibition will feature ninety-one works of art drawn from all eight of the Musée du Louvre's collection areas, spanning 4,000 years. Paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, and drawings will reflect three major themes: the changing historical and cultural definitions of a masterpiece; authenticity and connoisseurship; and the evolution of taste and scholarship. The exhibition is divided into three sections which together explore a range of thematic questions about the concept of a masterpiece. The exhibition includes Vermeer's "Astronomer."

internet:
http://www.artsmia.org/louvre/about.html

New Vermeer painting exhibited in New York

Young Woman Seated at a Virginal at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
January 9th - December, 2009
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

After its zigzag performance, the Young Woman Seated at a Virginal, reattributed in recent times to Vermeer, has bobbed up again in an unexpected place, next to the Woman with a Water Pitcher at the MET.

Vermeer painting exhibited in Atlanta

The Louvre and the Masterpiece
The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia
October 12, 2008 - September 6, 2009

The Louvre and the Masterpiece will explore how the definition of a "masterpiece," as well as taste and connoisseurship, have changed over time. The exhibition will feature ninety-one works of art drawn from all eight of the Musée du Louvre's collection areas, spanning 4,000 years. Paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, and drawings will reflect three major themes: the changing historical and cultural definitions of a masterpiece; authenticity and connoisseurship; and the evolution of taste and scholarship. The exhibition is divided into three sections which together explore a range of thematic questions about the concept of a masterpiece. The exhibition includes Vermeer's "Astronomer." February 17, 2009 "The Card Shark" by Georges de la Tour arrives to replace Vermeer's "Astronomer."

Vermeer painting exhibited in Canada

The Louvre Museum Exhibition: 17th-Century European Masterpieces.

The Louvre will be sending about 70 artworks to Japan in 2009 for a special exhibition of 17th-c. paintings, The Louvre Museum Exhibition: 17th-c. European Masterpieces. The exhibition will be held at the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo and the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art and will include Vermeer’s dazzling little Lacemaker.

Vermeer painting exhibited in Amsterdam

Woman Holding a Balance travels to Amsterdam
11 March - 1 June 2009
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

The Washington National Gallery of Art will lend its Woman Holding a Balance to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The work will be displayed next to other superb works by Vermeer in the collection of the Rijksmuseum.

Vermeer painting exhibited in Canada

Vermeer, Rembrandt and the Golden Age of Dutch Art: Masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum
May 9 to September 13, 2009
Vancouver Art Gallery

This exhibition will highlight works of art of the 17th-c. Dutch painting masters of the Golden Age. It will feature well over 100 works by many of the most celebrated masters of the period such as Aelbert Cuyp, Gerard Dou, Franz Hals, Rembrandt van Rijn, Jacob van Ruisdael, Gerard ter Borch and Johannes Vermeer, as well as an extraordinary selection of decorative arts, including furniture, silver, glassware, porcelain and textiles.

This exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Rijksmuseum and will include Vermeer’s late masterpiece, The Love Letter.

Dutch landscape exhibition

PRIDE OF PLACE: DUTCH CITYSCAPES OF THE GOLDEN AGE
February 1–May 3, 2009
National Gallery of Art, Washington D. C.

from the NGA website:
In the 17th century, a new genre of painting—the cityscape—emerged, fostered by the booming economy of the Dutch Republic and its affluent urbanites. Images of towns and cities became expressions of enormous civic pride. This exhibition of some 48 paintings, as well as 23 maps, atlases, illustrated books, and prints, offers a comprehensive survey of the Dutch cityscape, from wide-angle panoramas depicting the urban skyline with its fortifications, windmills, and church steeples, to renderings of daily life along canals, in city streets, and in town squares. Joining Jacob van Ruisdael's celebrated Haarlem with the Bleaching Fields (c. 1670–1675) are works by some 40 Dutch masters. Primarily active in Amsterdam, Delft, and Haarlem, these artists include Gerrit Berckheyde, Aelbert Cuyp, Jan van Goyen, Jan van der Heyden, Pieter de Hooch, Hendrick Vroom, Pieter Saenredam, and Jan Steen.

The exhibition coincides with the 400th anniversary of the Dutch exploration and settlement of the Hudson River Valley.

Vermeer Exhibition

West Coast art lovers to see a Vermeer when the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, Calif., exhibits “A Lady Writing"

Nov. 7 through Feb. 2, 2009

West Coast art lovers will be offered a rare opportunity to see a Vermeer when the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, Calif., exhibits A Lady Writing, above, from Nov. 7 through Feb. 2, 2009. On loan from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the painting, one of about 35 known works by Vermeer, will come to Pasadena as part of a series of exchanges between the Norton Simon foundations and the National Gallery.

Although the Simon will offer only a single painting, it is planning a complementary series of lectures and other events.  Click here for a list of lectures

"The Girl with a Pearl Necklace" Travels to Rome

Rembrandt to Vermeer. Civil Values in 17th Century Flemish and Dutch Painting
Fondazione Roma, Museo del Corso
November 11, 2008 to February 15, 2009

Representing the “Golden Century” of Flemish and Dutch art, the exhibition focuses on the development of the genre of the domestic interior, which was dedicated to family life and reflected the innovative social context and civil values of Holland in the 17th century. The 55 masterpieces on display will enable visitors to learn about the art and culture of Flanders and Holland during their “Golden Century”.

For the first time in Italy, it will finally be possible to admire a large selection of works belonging the world’s most important collection of 17th-c. Dutch and Flemish paintings: that of Berlin’ s Gemäldegalerie, which includes masterpieces such as Rembrandt’s The Money Changer and Vermeer’s Woman with a Pearl Necklace.

for more information click here

Vermeer Related Conference at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

VERMEER: TRUE AND FALSE
Grace Rainey Rodgers Auditorium, the Metropolitan Museum of Art
November 14, 2008
Lecture, 6:00 pm

from the Metropolitan Museum of Art website:

Between 1887 and 1917, thirteen paintings by Johannes Vermeer and several works wrongly attributed to him entered American collections. Continuing demand for Vermeer's rare pictures (36 are known today) created a niche market for forgers during the 1920s and 1930s, of whom the most gifted and notorious was the Dutch artist Han van Meegeren, who was active as a forger throughout most of the inter-war period. Metropolitan Museum curator Walter Liedtke (author of a new monograph on Vermeer) and independent scholar Jonathan Lopez (author of a new biography of Van Meegeren) consider the difference between a Vermeer of about 1660 and one of about 1925.

Tickets go on sale on or about September 1 Order online (after Sept. 1) at the Met's website, by phone at (212) 570-3949 by phone at (212) 570-3949, or in person at the Concerts & Lectures box office, located in the Museum's Great Hall, 1000 Fifth Avenue (at 82nd Street).

online tickets:
http://www.metmuseum.org/tickets/calendar/view.asp?id=2532

6 Vermeer's travel to Japan

Vermeer and the Delft Style
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in Ueno-koen
August 2 - December 14, 2008

Vermeer and the Delft Style features 6 rare masterpieces by Johannes Vermeer and other paintings by his contemporaries affording viewers a suggestive glance of Golden Age of Dutch Art.  There has been no occasion, where these masterpieces come together in one exhibition ever hosted in Asia and only three of the Vermeer’s have been formally exhibited.The Vermeer paintings included in the exhibition are: The Little Street, Diana and her Companions, The Girl with the Wineglass, Woman with a Lute,  Christ in the House of Martha and Mary and the recently re-attributed A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals which is rarely on public view. The exhibition also features the miniscule masterpiece View of Delft by Carel Fabritius, a splendid view of Delft by Van der Heyden and two fine De Hooch’s.

Vermeer's Lady Standing at the Virginal part of a special exhibition, Love

Love is in the air at the Laing Art Gallery
Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K.
19 April – 13 July 2008

Love is in the air at the Laing Art Gallery, as flirtation, disappointment and intimacy are among the themes explored in a new exhibition. Love is a new National Gallery touring exhibition, which looks at the ways artists have responded to the pains and pleasures of love over the centuries. It features work by artists including Tracey Emin, David Hockney, Johannes Vermeer (Lady Standing at the Virginal) and Marc Chagall. The Laing’s Marble Hall will also be home to Marc Quinn’s spectacular sculpture, Kiss.

Vermeer Center Reopens, Delft

Although the newly-built Vermeer Center of Delft was quickly overcome by economic woes, it now seems destined to reopen. On the evening of 11th December, when the citizens of Delft gather in Market Place for the traditional Lichtjesavond ("Lights' evening") the Center will open free of charge to Delft citizens.
From 2nd January 2008 it wi`ll be opened to the public.

The center offers a valid educational starting point for the thousands visitors who flock to Vermeer's native city which, in fact, has not a single original painting by the native artist. Keep in touch with the Center's future by signing up free of the Essential Vermeer Newsletter or by clicking on the Center's website listed below.

Vermeer Lecture at the Vermeer Centrum, Delft

Thursday, 21 February, 2008, 8 p.m

In a lecture at the Vermeer Center in Delft, Ms Karin H. Jense will explore the musical culture of the 1650s basing her observations of the paintings of Vermeer with musical themes. Period music will also performed allowing the audience to experience the atmosphere of the times and specifically of the compositions of Vermeer.

Ms Jense has studied musical education, harpsichord and choir conducting at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag (Royal Conservatory The Hague) and has been actively engaged as a music lecturer and advisor for thirty years and currently gives regular audio lectures.

For further information:
e-mail:
vriendenvermeer@hetnet.nl

tel.
015 – 256 53 06 (D. Mostert-Bok)
or 06-33704508 (C. J. Oerlemans).

exceptional loan of the rijksmuseum's milkmaid to japan

Milkmaid by Vermeer and Dutch Genre Painting - Masterworks from the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

September 26 - December 17, 2007
The National Art Center, Tokyo

Johannes Vermeer's The Kitchen Maid, also affectionately known as The Milkmaid, is being loaned temporarily to The National Art Center in Tokyo, Japan, where it will be on display from 26 September until 17 December 2007 as part of the exhibition 'Milkmaid by Vermeer and Dutch Genre Painting'. Dutch Genre Painting from the 17-19 century introduced with 116 masterworks from the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, featuring Vermeer's Milkmaid as a centerpiece.

check the special exhibition website (Japanese only)

exhibition of a great Dutch still life painter

GEMALTES LICHT: DIE STILLEBEN VON WILLEM KALF (1619-1693) (Painted light: the still-life paintings of Willem Kalf (1619-93))
Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum
Wilhelmstraße 18
D-52070 Aachen
Germany
8 March 2007 – 3 June 2007

from the website of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen:
Willem Kalf may be the most important painter of still life pictures of the Golden Age. But, oddly enough, he is not that well-known. Kalf was born in 1619 in Rotterdam, and left for Paris at a young age. There, he painted interiors of barns, a theme typical of Rotterdam, which made him famous in Paris. After his return, in 1651, he married a wealthy and literary gifted lady in Hoorn. After which he lived in Amsterdam until his death in 1693.

Here, he painted still life pictures of very valuable objects, that sparkled against a dark background. It is as if the silver goblets and platters, the flashing Venetian glasses and expensive Chinese plates want to enchant the viewer with their mysterious splendor. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen presents Willem Kalf for the first time with thirty paintings, mainly from foreign museums.

catalogue:
Gemaltes Licht: die Stilleben von Willem Kalf (1619-1693)
Includes essays by seven authors
c. 160 pp., with ca. 125 color and 50 black-and-white illustrations
24 x 30 cm, paperbound
Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin
ISBN 3-422-06673-X

tel. +49 241 479 800
fax: +49 241 37075
email: info@suermondt-ludwig-museum.de

venues:
Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (25 November 2006-18 February 2007)
Aachen, Suermondt-Ludwig Museum (8 March-3 June 2007)

exhibition of a Dutch landscape painter

BRAND! JAN VAN DER HEYDEN, SCHILDER EN UITVINDER (JAN VAN DER HEYDEN- 1637-1712)
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
2 February 2007 – 30 April 2007

curator:
Peter C. Sutton, executive director of the Bruce Museum

In 2007 the Rijksmuseum presents the first monographic exhibition on Jan van der Heyden in the Netherlands since 1937. Van der Heyden was one of the leading 17th-c. painters of Dutch cityscapes. He was also fascinated by firefighting and is still remembered to this day by many as the inventor of the fire hose. The Rijksmuseum exhibition focuses on the diversity of Van der Heyden, who became known as the Dutch Leonardo da Vinci. The first part features a selection of sixteen of his finest paintings, on loan from various museums and private collections in Europe and the United States. The second part concentrates on his dramatic sketches and prints of fires in the city. In addition, his famous book on firefighting, published in 1690, is displayed, alongside an early example of his fire hose.

Eye for detail
Jan van der Heyden (Gorinchem 1637-1712 Amsterdam) was one of the leading pioneers of Dutch cityscape painting in the 17th century. His depictions of canals, churches, public squares, castles and courtyards reveal a remarkable eye for detail. He used sharp colours, with subtle nuances of tone and atmosphere to portray these scenes, often creating striking perspective constructions.

Idealized cityscapes
Van der Heyden's paintings were already famous in his own day for their wealth of detail. Despite the apparent natural effect of the depiction, for which he developed innovative techniques, topographical accuracy was not Van der Heyden's primary concern. He often took buildings out of their original setting and placed them in an entirely new context. A composition had above all to convey the atmosphere of the location. As the inventor of the architectural capriccio, a depiction of a fictional location, Van der Heyden was a major precursor of 18th-century Italian vedute artists such as the Venetian Canaletto and Bernardo Bellotto.

Besides cityscapes of Amsterdam and the Rhineland, Van der Heyden also painted landscapes and several still lives, some of which are shown in the exhibition.

catalogue:
Jan van der Heyden (1637 - 1712)
Peter C. Sutton, lead author. Essays: Jonathan Bikker and Arie Wallert. Catalogue entries: Taco Dibbits, Marijn Schapelhouman, and Norbert Middelkoop
250 illustrated pages, including 130 paintings, drawings and figures
New Haven, Yale University Press

venues:
Greenwich, Connecticut, The Bruce Museum (16 September 2006-10 January 2007)
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum (2 February-30 April 2007)

address:
Rijksmuseum
Postbus 74888
1070 DN Amsterdam
Netherlands

tel. +31 20 674 7000
fax: +31 20 674 7001
email: info@rijksmuseum.nl

exhibition of Vermeer's Lady Seated at the Virginals in Modena, Italy

VERMEER: LA RAGAZZA E I PITORI DI DELFT
Galleria Estense
Modena, Italy
April 15 - July 15, 2006

curator: Bert Meijer

After the Love Letter in Rome, another Vermeer will be traveling to Italy. The London Lady Seated at the Virginals and other paintings from Delft will be exhibited at the Galleria Estense in Modena. The initiative is promoted by the superintendent of the gallery Maria Grazia Bernardini in collaboration with Bert Meijer, noted specialist active in the Dutch Institute of Florence. The exhibit will feature the works of about 25 other Dutch masters in the collections from The Hague, London, Vienna, Amsterdam, Washington, Los Angeles, Boston and Florence. The exhibit will be organized in three sections. The first is dedicated to Delft and its immediate environs. The second presents various facets of daily life of the second half of the 17th century focused around works of Pieter de Hooch. The third section features Vermeer's late Lady Seated at the Virginals with other pictures of analogous theme.

click here for a special exhibit report.

see exhibit website: http://www.vermeermodena.it/home.asp

Vermeer's Love Letter goes to Rome

LA LETTERA D’AMORE” di VERMEER A PALAZZO BARBERINI
Galleria de arte antica de Palazzo Barberini, Rome
from April 27 to 18 June, 2006

Vermeer's late Love Letter will be exhibited at Galleria di Arte Antica di Palazzo Barberini from April 26 to the June 27, 2006. The exhibition will be curated by Angela Negro and Anna lo Bianco.

more information at:
http://www.mondomostre.it/

exhibition of the greatest 17th-c. Dutch landscape painter

JACOB VAN RUISDAEL: MASTER OF LANDSCAPE
Royal Academy, Piccadilly, London
until 4 June 2006

from the museum's website:
Jacob van Ruisdael was one of the greatest painters of the Golden Age of Dutch painting. He was born into abject poverty in 1628 or 1629 and much of his life is shrouded in mystery. Raised in Haarlem he moved to Amsterdam and died there in 1682. In the course of his life Ruisdael broke with many of the traditions of Dutch painting and became a figure of great influence. He is celebrated for faithfully recording nature while responding to it imaginatively. His works are also considered to be fine meditations on human experience in a world shaped by constant cycles of growth and decay.

Ruisdael's impact can be seen in the Barbizon School of France, the American Hudson River School, and in the work of John Constable, England's own leading landscape painter. To coincide with this exhibition the John Madejski Fine Rooms have been hung with a selection of landscape paintings from the Royal Academy's Permanent Collection. These works can be seen free of charge during Jacob van Ruisdael: Master of Landscape.

catalogue available at Amazon.com

This exhibition has been jointly organized by the Royal Academy of Arts, London, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

exhibition of Dutch painting

THE DUTCH GOLDEN AGE AT THE NATIONALMUSEUM
curator: Görel Cavalli-Björkman
Nationalmuseum
Södra Blasieholmshamnen
from 22 September 2005 to 8 January 2006

The 'realist' paintings of the 17th-c. Netherlands offer a fascinating experience to visitors to this autumn's major exhibition at the Nationalmuseum devoted to The Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces by Rembrandt, Frans Hals and their contemporaries will be on show from 22 September 2005.The core of the exhibition is provided by the museum's own collections of Dutch paintings and drawings. These have been enriched by loans from other museums, most notably from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen and the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The exhibition comprises some 300 works presented thematically in four galleries and six smaller rooms.

location:
Nationalmuseum
Södra Blasieholmshamnen
Phone +46 8 5195 4300, fax +46 8 5195 4436
www.nationalmuseum.se

website exhibiton information:
http://www.nationalmuseum.se/NMTemplates/
NMSingleExhibition____3747.aspx

exhibiton of Vermeer's contemporary Frans van Mieris

FRANS VAN MIERIS (1635-1681)
Mauritshuis, The Hague
from 1 October 2005 – 22 January 2006

With utmost diligence and patience Van Mieris painted interiors, scenes from daily life and portraits, primarily in a small format. He made likenesses of well-to-do burghers, famous or important residents of Leiden, and self-portraits and portraits of his wife Cunera van der Cock. He also produced a few history pieces and allegorical scenes. The strength of his work lies in his subtle and remarkable painting technique and palette. The way in which he depicted the various fabrics, materials and textures is nothing short of miraculous: an almost perfect miniature rendering of reality.

location:
Mauritshuis
Korte Vijverberg 8
NL-2513 AB The Hague
Netherlands

contact:
T +31 70 302 3456
F +31 70 365 3819

email:
communicatie@mauritshuis.nl

other venue:
National Gallery of Art, Washington (26 February-21 May 2006)

exhibition with Vermeer's Music Lesson

ENCHANTING THE EYE: DUTCH PAINTERS OF THE GOLDEN AGE
The Royal Collection, Buckingham Palace
11 February - 30 October, 2005

museum info:
The Royal Collection contains one of the world's finest groups of Dutch 17th-c. paintings. Among the most enduringly popular images in Western Art, these pictures have for centuries been admired for their harmonious compositions, close observation of detail, subtle light effects and meticulous finish. The 51 outstanding examples selected for the exhibition embrace genre scenes, portraits, still-lifes, history paintings, landscapes and marinescapes. They include works by the great masters of the period, among them Rembrandt's jewel-like Christ and St Mary Magdalen at the Tomb and his Self-Portrait of 1642, luminous landscapes by Aelbert Cuyp, and Johannes Vermeer's enigmatic A Lady at the Virginals (The Music Lesson).

book tickets online:
https://www.the-royal-collection.com/royaltickets/default.asp
or telephone (+44) (0) 20 7766 7301
Tickets may also be bought in advance from The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace.

web information:
http://194.203.40.17/output/Page1215.asp

exhibition with Vermeer's Love Letter

DUTCH MASTERS FROM THE RIJKSMUSEUM
National Gallery of Victoria
Melbourne, Australia
24 June to 2 October 20 , 2005

museum info:
The most comprehensive display of 17th-c. Dutch masterpieces is on its way to Melbourne for the second exhibition in the Melbourne Winter Masterpieces series.

Following the success of The Impressionists in 2004, Dutch Masters from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam will offer audiences the richest survey of 17 th century Dutch art ever staged in Australia. Opening Friday 24 June, the exhibition brings together more than 100 sumptuous works and decorative objects by great artists such as Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Pieter de Hooch, and Jan Steen.The exhibition includes Vermeer's late masterpiece, The Love Letter.

Victoria Museum home page:
http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/dutchmasters/index.html

For information and bookings
phone: + 61 3 8662 1555
email: enquiries@ngv.vic.gov.au

A fully illustrated exhibition catalogue will be available for purchase.

check here for further information on opening time etc. http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/whatson/whatson_
eventlist.jsp?locationID=4&eventID=321

exhibition with Vermeer's Art of Painting

VERMEER FROM VIENNA
Mauritshuis, The Hague
25 March - 26 June, 2005

museum info:
Very exceptionally, one of the most celebrated paintings by Vermeer, The Art of Painting, c 1666-8, from the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna will be on loan for three months. Vermeer’s careful rendering of the details and different surface textures as well as the subtle gradations of light are testimonies to Vermeer’s supreme accomplishments as a painter.

In 1996 the Mauritshuis mounted a survey exhibition of Vermeer’s work. Unfortunately, the condition of The Art of Painting was not good enough to travel to the show. In the meantime, the painting has been restored, and nine years later Vermeer's showpiece can be seen to full advantage in The Hague.

email:
communicatie@mauritshuis.nl

web information:
http://www.mauritshuis.nl/english/index_vermeer_explorer.html

Will Vermeer's Young Woman at the Virginals feel at home in Las Vegas?

according to Arts.telegraph*
...Las Vegas casino owner Steve Wynn is revealed this week as the mystery buyer of Vermeer's A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals at Sotheby's last July for £16.2 million. On Thursday (Arpil 28), he opens Wynn, Las Vegas, a new $2.7 billion resort complete with golf course, lakes, a fake mountain and an art gallery in which the tiny painting will be exhibited. Sotheby's spent years trying to establish that the painting, previously dismissed as a fake, was an original. Even then, not everyone was convinced. After the sale, Sotheby's described the buyer only as "anonymous", but its re-appearance in Las Vegas confirms that it was Wynn who took the gamble.

more about Vermeer's brand new home**
The strip's newest and most expensive casino resort is just days away from opening its doors. Wynn, Las Vegas is a 2.7 billion dollar resort. It will have more than 27-hundred rooms. The resort features a large, man-made mountain in the front of the hotel, with huge waterfalls facing inwards. That structure alone cost an estimated 130-million dollars to build.

Wynn, Las Vegas (the name of the new casino) will also feature a Ferrari-Maserati dealership inside. As for entertainment, Franco Dragone will put on a multi-million water-themed production called "La Reve." The two-thousand-plus theater-in-the-round includes a one-million gallon performance pool that doubles as a stage. Wynn will include 18 new restaurants and bars overseen by celebrity chefs.

* from:
Market news: Vermeer gamble
Arts.telegraph, 25/04/2005

**from:
Wynn, Las Vegas Only A Few Days Away From Opening
April 27, 2005, 07:46 PM

exhibition of Vermeer's contemporary

GERARD TER BORCH
The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA)
Feb. 27– May 22, 2005

(in Detroit this exhibit is organized by George Keyes, DIA chief curator and curator of European paintings)

museum information:
Gerard ter Borch is one of the most celebrated of all seventeenth-century Dutch painters, yet remarkably, no exhibition in the United States has ever focused on his work. To assess his important oeuvre, the American Federation of Arts and the National Gallery of Art are organizing an exhibition of this great master’s paintings. Gerard ter Borch will comprise approximately forty-five paintings, including Ter Borch’s most striking early pictures from the 1630’s, the mid-career genre paintings for which he is most famous, depictions of historical events, and the small and delicate portraits that brought the artist prosperity throughout his professional life.

This exhibition will not only give museum visitors in the United States their first opportunity to see a broad overview of Ter Borch’s work, but will also result in the first major English-language publication on the artist. The exhibition catalogue, to be published by the American Federation of Arts and the National Gallery of Art, will include an essay by Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr, Curator of Northern Baroque Paintings at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, on Ter Borch’s life and work; a study of the modernity of Ter Borch’s paintings by Alison McNeil Kettering, Professor of Art History at Carleton College; and an examination of Ter Borch’s painting technique by Arie Wallert, Conservator of Paintings at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. In addition, each painting in the exhibition will be illustrated and discussed in a separate entry.

location:
Washington DC 20565
USA
T: +1 202 737 4215
E: der-info@nga.gov

other venues:
National Gallery of Art
Constitution Avenue NW
November 7, 2004 - January 30, 2005

exhibition of Vermeer's contemporary

CAREL FABRITIUS (1622 - 1654): DAS WERK
Staatliches Museum Schwerin, Schwerin
29 January 2005 – 16 May 2005

curators:
Kornelia von Berswordt-Walrabe, Frits Duparc, Peter van der Ploeg, Gero Seelig and Ariane van Suchtelen.

museum press release, January 2005:
In collaboration with the Mauritshuis The Hague, the Staatliches Museum Schwerin for the first time shows the complete known oeuvre of Fabritius, which consists of 14 paintings. His paintings, scattered all over the world, are highlights of the collections of which they are a part. This exhibition affords the singular opportunity of a synopsis of paintings which feature in collections in Boston, Los Angeles, London, Moscow, Warsaw, Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Salzburg, Munich, Hannover, and Schwerin.

Carel Fabritius, a pupil of Rembrandt, was undoubtedly one of the most ingenious and versatile painters of the Dutch 17th century. His work had a decisive influence on Johannes Vermeer, Pieter de Hooch and Emanuel de Witte. The explosion of the municipal arsenal in Delft in 1654 not only took the painter's life but destroyed many of his work as well. Masterpieces such as The Goldfinch, The Sentry and the View in Delft, with a musical instrument seller's stall, rank among the most handsome and famous of Dutch paintings. Fabritius' complete (modest) oeuvre will be brought together in cooperation with the Staatliches Museum in Schwerin.

catalogue:
Almost half of these works have been attributed to Fabritius only after the publication of Christopher Brown’s catalogue raisonée in 1981 and are presented together for the first time in the exhibition catalogue. The catalogue includes a comprehensive essay describing the life and work of the artist, a text on his means of composition as well as entries on every single painting. All paintings are illustrated in full colour. His connection to Rembrandt is assessed and the influence on the Delft School discussed. The book is published in English, German and Dutch.

location:
Staatliches Museum Schwerin
Alter Garten 3
D-19055 Schwerin
Germany

contact:
tel. +49 385 5958 119
fax: +49 385 563 090
email:
info@museum-schwerin.de

exhibition of Dutch trompe-l'oeil painter at the Mauritshuis

THE EYE DECEIVED: TROMPE-L’OEIL PAINTINGS BY CORNELIUS GIJSBRECHTS
Mauritshuis, The Hague
4 February - 15 May, 2005

museum info:
The originally Flemish painter Gysbrechts entered the service of the Danish court in 1668. In the following four years he produced a unique series of trompe-l'oeil paintings for King Frederik III and his successor Christiaan V. While various seventeenth-century artists attempted to paint the odd trompe l'oeil representation, Gysbrechts made it his specialty. His partially open wall cabinets, letter racks, turned-back cloths and hunting still lifes ingeniously deceive the viewer's eye.

catalogue available (Dutch only)

email:
communicatie@mauritshuis.nl

web information:
http://www.mauritshuis.nl/english/index_gijsbrechts_explorer.html

exhibition with Vermeer's The Woman with a Lute, A Lady Writing, The Geographer, The Love Letter and The Lacemaker

Der zauber des alltäglichen: Holländische malerei von Adriaen Brouwer bis Johannes Vermeer
(The magic of the ordinary: Dutch painting from Adriaen Brouwer to Johannes Vermeer)

from the museum website:
Elegant ladies in satin dresses, maids in starched bonnets, and pensive scholars in their studies, there is hardly a period we seem to know more about than life in the Golden Age. Yet the well-ordered world of the Dutch burghers has a flip side where the lady of the house is drinking wine in broad daylight and an uncouth peasant is pulling disgusted faces. This exhibition presents the great variety of subjects and meanings of the kind of painting so unsatisfactorily classed as genre painting.

Key works in the collections of the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, longstanding partner of many successful joint projects, and of the Städel itself form the basis on which a new generic concept is to be developed. Dismissed by contemporary art critics, these works were so popular with audiences at the time that painters even specialised in the production of such art. Well-known artists like Jan Vermeer, Adriaen Brouwer and Jan Steen developed their own styles and storylines, which fascinate viewers to this day and whose comic details charm us into laughter.

Among the painters in the exhibition are: Frans van Mieris, Adriaen Brouwer, Adriaen van Ostade, Gerrit Dou, Gerard ter Borch, Jan Steen, Pieter de Hooch and Gabriel Metsu.

location:
Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie
Dürerstrasse 2
D-60596 Frankfurt am Main
Germany

T: +49 69 605 098 200
F: +49 69 610 163
E: info@staedelmuseum.de

co-organizer:
In collaboration with the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam

click here and visit the exhibition website

installation of "A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals"

A YOUNG WOMAN SEATED AT THE VIRGINALS BY JOHANNES VERMEER
August 11, 2004 - mid-April 2005

The Philadelphia Museum of Art has placed on view A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals (c. 1670), a painting by Johannes Vermeer of Delft (1632-1675). A small work measuring only 9 7/8 x 7 7/8 inches, it is on loan from a private collection through March 2005 and can be seen in the Goltzius Room (Gallery 264).

curator:
Lloyd DeWitt • Assistant Curator, European Painting before 1900

location:
Gallery 264, second floor See Rembrandt New Acquisition Information

Philadelphia Museum of Art
Benjamin Franklin Parkway and 26th Street | Philadelphia, PA 19130
Main Museum Number: (215) 763-8100 | TTY: (215) 684-7600

http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/installations/vermeer.shtml

Vermeer lecture

THE LIGHT AND SHADE AND THE LADIES: THE QUIET WORLD OF JAN VERMEER
Presented by Barbara Johnston - adjunct professor of art history, Virginia
Commonwealth University
Monday, April 4, 7:30 p.m., Williamsburg Library Theatre, 515 Scotland Street, Williamsburg, Virginia
(USA)

To look at a painting by Jan Vermeer is to enter an enchanted world of silent women and glowing light. The preeminent painter of women in a society fascinated by them, Vermeer's small, intimate paintings have a unique quality that sets them apart from the work of his contemporaries. From the virtuous kitchen maid to the dutiful housewife, Vermeer's women occupy a world of their own, a world of serenity and order that was the ideal of womanhood in 17th-c. Holland. But things are not always as they seem, for Vermeer was a master of subtext, and in each painting, he has given us clues to help us understand the inner life of his ladies. By examining these works, we come to realize that a great deal lies beneath the serene surfaces Vermeer's women present to the world.

This Century Art Gallery and the library continues their popular art-lecture series which is made possible through the Gallery's partnership program with the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. A reception provided by This Century Art Gallery will follow.

studio exhibition to mark restoration of Vermeer's Procuress

JAN VERMEER: THE PROCURESS
(Das restaurierte Meisterwerk: Die Kupplerin von Vermeer)
Dec. 3, 2004 - Feb. 2, 2005
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden - Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister
Zwinger Theaterplatz 1
D-01067 Dresden
Germany

curated by Uta Neidhardt

This studio exhibition marks the restoration of the painting in 2003. It deals with the restoration of the painting, the painting technique and a new art-historical approach to the painting. The studio exhibition contains only the Procuress by Vermeer and some paintings by other Netherlandish artists of the same period which are in our possession, besides some glasses, jugs, dresses, a musical instrument, and some other objects to compare special aspects with the Vermeer painting. Included in the exhibition is a detailed documentation of the restoration.

catalogue:
A monographic catalogue will be published with essays about the restoration, scientific examinations of the Vermeer and the art-historical valuation of the new discoveries.

tel: +49 351 491 4619
fax: +49 351 491 4616
email: info@skd.smwk.sachsen.de

Exhibition with Vermeer's Music Lesson

ENCHANTING THE EYE: DUTCH PAINTING OF THE GOLDEN AGE
The Queen’s Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh
May 14 until November 7, 2004

The Royal Collection contains one of the world's finest groups of Dutch 17th-c. paintings. Among the most enduringly popular images in Western Art, these pictures have for centuries been admired for their harmonious compositions, close observation of detail, subtle light effects, and meticulous finish. The 51 outstanding examples selected for the exhibition embrace genre scenes, portraits, still-lifes, history paintings, landscapes and seascapes. They include works by the great masters of the period, among them Rembrandt's jewel-like Christ and St. Mary Magdalen at the Tomb and his Self-Portrait of 1642, luminous landscapes by Aelbert Cuyp, and Johannes Vermeer's enigmatic A Lady at the Virginals (The Music Lesson).

The Official Site of the Royal Monarchy
http://194.203.40.17/textonly/Page1993.asp
http://194.203.40.17/OutPut/Page623.asp

Sunday Herald Online Article
http://www.sundayherald.com/41786

Exhibition with Vermeer's The Art of Painting

FLEMISH AND DUTCH PAINTINGS FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE KUNSTHISTORISCHES MUSEUM WIEN
Kobe City Museum
Kobe, Japan
July 17-Oct. 11, 2004

Vermeer's Art of Painting will be shown at the Metropolitan Art Museum in Ueno, Japan in an exhibition of Dutch and Flemish art, among works such as Rembrandt's Saint Paul (1636), Self-Portrait 1655) and Peter Paul Rubens' Self-Portrait (ca 1638/40).

A Rare Vermeer Comes to Boston

DUTCH INTERIORS IN THE AGE OF VERMEER
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
November 19 , 2003 - February 22 , 2004
Brown Gallery, Second Floor, Evans Wing

curated by Ronni Baer

Thanks to the generosity of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the MFA has been given the unparalleled opportunity to exhibit a beautiful and rare painting: Johannes Vermeer’s Young Woman with a Water Pitcher. For a limited time, this work will be on view in the Matthew and Edna Goodrich Brown Gallery along with a special installation of the MFA’s Dutch genre paintings.

Vermeer’s paintings often feature women in domestic interiors but, unlike other Dutch genre scenes, they lack a clear narrative. Rather, the subject becomes the quality and workings of light, its magical reflections rendered in smooth, highly-finished brushwork. In Young Woman with a Water Pitcher, the room’s fashionable furnishings and the woman’s attire indicate her elevated social standing; the silver pitcher and washbasin evoke innocence, purity, and cleanliness.

Surely one of the most famous and beloved artists of all time, Vermeer has recently captured the popular imagination because of a spate of novels fictionalizing his life and subjects. And, while Rembrandt’s body of work consists of several hundred paintings, drawings, and prints, only about thirty-five works by Vermeer are extant. These paintings are concentrated in just a few collections and rarely travel; this loan is a special event. Don’t miss this exceptional opportunity to enjoy one of Vermeer’s finest works at the MFA.

Ronni Baer is the Mrs. Russell W. Baker Senior Curator of Paintings, Art of Europe.
http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/rare_vermeer.html

of related interest: Click here to view a list of lectures, gallery talks and events related to this exhibition.

restoration of The Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius on public display

Although this news does not regard Vermeer himself, it nonetheless should be appreciated by all those who love the rare paintings of Fabritius and Dutch 17th-c. art in general.

The Mauritshuis will restore one of its most beautiful works: The Goldfinch. To enable the public to actually see the restoration work being done, one of the museum rooms is being refurbished as a restoration workshop for this period. Visitors can watch the restorer at work from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. A webcam will be focused on the restorer as he works, so that his activities can be followed on the worldwide web.

Carel Fabritius, a pupil of Rembrandt, was undoubtedly one of the most ingenious and versatile painters of the Dutch 17th century. His work had a decisive influence on Johannes Vermeer, Pieter de Hooch and Emanuel de Witte. The explosion of the municipal arsenal in Delft in 1654 not only took the painter's life but destroyed many of his work as well. Masterpieces such as The Goldfinch, The Sentry and The View in Delft, with a musical instrument seller's stall, rank among the most handsome and famous of Dutch paintings. Fabritius' complete (modest) oeuvre will be brought together in cooperation with the Staatliches Museum in Schwerin.

exhibition about vermeer's Geographer

JOHANNES VERMEER'S THE GEOGRAPHER: THE SCIENCE OF THE ARTIST
Gemaldergalerie Alte Meister, Kassel, Germany
curated by Dr. Thorsten Smidt

Vermeer's Geographer is the focal point of the current exhibition which deals with way in which artists used science to help create their paintings. One of the principle questions of the exhibit is whether Vermeer used the camera obscura (a kind of precursor to the modern photographic camera) or not to create his extremely subtle compositions and register with uncanny fidelity the natural play of light which are fundamental characteristics of his art. For this reason, a fully-functioning camera obscura is on display to give visitors an opportunity to directly observe the visual effect it produces. Historical sketches of camera obscurae are also on display. More than 20 works of by 16th- and 17th-c. artists such as Dürer, Rembrandt, David Teniers, Gerard Dou and Frans van Mieris borrowed from other German museums shown how science was represented by artists.

The catalogue (in German only, 10 Euros) was written by Dr. Thorsten Smidt. It is richly illustrated with every work on exhibit and is on sale at the museum.

Feb. 14 - May 11, 2003
Opening times: Tuesday until Sunday 10 - 17 o'clock

exhibition of seven Vermeer paintings at the Prado

VERMEER AND THE DUTCH INTERIOR
Curated by Alejandro Vergara

Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado. Another excellent opportunity to view not only some of Vermeer's most significant works, but to compare them with other Dutch paintings of similar theme. Some of Vermeer's most important paintings such as The Art of Painting from the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Woman with a Balance from the National Gallery, Washington, and the Young Woman with a Water Jug from the Metropolitan Museum, New York will be on view. In all, nine paintings by Vermeer will be on exhibit. Among other painters exhibited are Gaspar Netscher, Gerard Dou, Gabriel Metsu, Gerard ter Borch, Jan Steen, Nicolaes Maes, Van Mieris, Pieter de Hooch and Emmanuel de Witte.

Alejandro Vergara has written the excellent exhibition catalogue in collaboration Mariët Westermann.

This exceptional event will certainly be worth the trip. For further information click here.

hours:
Tuesday to Sunday and public holidays 9am – 7pm
24 and 31 December 9am – 2pm
(Last entry 30 minutes before closing. Visitors are requested to start vacating the galleries 10 minutes before closing)
Monday : Closed .
1 January, Good Friday, 1 May and 25 December : Closed