The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam has been exhibiting almost all of Vermeer’s paintings since the beginning of February. This is considered a sensation in the art scene. The exhibition has been sold out for a long time, the audience comes from all over the world.
Jan Vermeer is hard to miss in Amsterdam these days. Two meter-high details from the Baroque painter’s best-known works are attached to the magnificent brick facade of the Rijksmuseum: the tender, half-open lips of the “Girl with the Red Hat” and the milk dripping from a clay jug of the “Milkmaid with a milk jug”. The posters show only a fraction of what is currently on display in the museum’s Philips Wing.
Biggest exhibition of all time
With 28 of the only 37 surviving works by Vermeer that the Rijksmuseum has assembled, it is the largest exhibition of the artist’s work of all time. Never before have so many paintings by the Dutch doyen been shown in one place.
Experts suspect that no museum will ever be able to do this again. The rush is correspondingly huge: Vermeer lovers and art fans travel from all over the world. 200,000 tickets were sold even before the opening, and the museum extended its opening hours. The exhibition is now finally sold out, and more than half a million people are expected.
The rush to the largest Vermeer exhibition of all time is huge. Three days after the opening, tickets were sold out.
Biggest mystery of art history
Despite the most modern investigative techniques and scientific-historical classifications, Vermeer is still considered the greatest mystery in art history. Experts call him the “Sphinx of Delft”.
No one knows exactly how many paintings his oeuvre makes up; no one knows from whom he learned his extraordinary use of light; nobody knows the models and places that Vermeer depicted in an almost photorealistic way.
This myth about the painter as a person was fueled by Hollywood back in 2003. The film “Girl with a Pearl Earring” shows the life of the old master in Delft – including fictitious answers to the unsolved questions. The creation of legends also made Vermeer famous in the pop culture scene and attracts many visitors to Amsterdam.
The Rijksmuseum itself only owns four masterpieces by Vermeer. All other paintings are scattered around the world in 19 museums and private collections.
Five paintings from Germany
The Rijksmuseum itself only owns four masterpieces by Vermeer. All other paintings are scattered around the world in 19 museums and private collections. The Amsterdam museum is therefore dependent on loans, including some from Germany.
The Old Masters Picture Gallery in Dresden provided the “Girl Reading a Letter at the Open Window” and “The Procuress”, the State Museum in Berlin sent “The Glass of Wine” and “Woman with a Pearl Necklace”, the Städel Museum in Frankfurt am Main sent the ” geographers” to Amsterdam.
In comparison, experts call Vermeer a “slow artist”: He only created about two works a year, but was still able to make a living from his art.
World trade for color pigments
Meanwhile, in the basement of the Rijksmuseum, painting restorers are researching the artist’s works with infrared cameras. The recordings reveal brushstrokes in layers underlying the visible paint. In the case of the “maid with milk jug”, the experts came across an image of a shelf with jugs hanging on it. Vermeer later painted over this again, opting for a plain white background.
At the Mauritshuis in The Hague, home of the world-famous Girl with a Pearl Earring, the research went even further: they pierced the canvas of the valuable painting with a thin needle to extract fine color pigments. These color pigments can now be traced back all over the world.
The ultramarine used by Vermeer in the girl’s headscarf came from Afghanistan and was more valuable than gold in the 17th century. The red he used for the lips came from an insect that lives on a cactus in Mexico, the white of the world-famous earring from the mountains of England. These findings illustrate world trade in the Netherlands in the 17th century.
Emmanuel Macron also visited the Vermeer exhibition in Amsterdam during the first state visit by a French president to the Netherlands in 23 years.
The Golden age
Jan Vermeer was born in Delft, Netherlands, in 1632. His father ran an inn and an art dealership. Vermeer grew up surrounded by artists and paintings. He married the wealthy Katharina Bolnes, with whom he had 14 children. Vermeer continued his father’s art business and became a painter himself.
At the height of the Golden Age around 1650, around 700 painters were working in the Netherlands, completing around 70,000 paintings a year. In comparison, experts call Vermeer a “slow artist”: He only created about two works a year, but was still able to make a living from his art. In the catastrophic year 1672 – the Dutch Republic fell into an economic crisis – the art market, which had been flourishing up to that point, collapsed. Vermeer ran into serious financial problems and died a short time later at the age of 43, deeply in debt.
In Delft today, nothing reminds of the city’s greatest son. Vermeer’s birthplace is empty and his grave has not been preserved. Art fans will look in vain for statues, museums or commemorative plaques.
Exhibition also online
Meanwhile, Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum is pleased about the considerable interest in Jan Vermeer. After the website servers were temporarily overloaded during advance ticket sales, the museum is now offering a virtual tour using high-resolution scans.
All of Vermeer’s well-known works are on display, supplemented by the latest research findings. A little consolation for those who couldn’t get tickets.