Johannes Vermeer. The Milkmaid, 1658-1659. Oil on canvas. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt. Photo: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
By Nina Heyn — Your Culture Scout
The sold-out, long-touted, once-in-a-lifetime Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is in full swing—crowds of lucky ticket-holders are thronging through a few small rooms. But perhaps this is the right space to exhibit these intimate, delicate pictures that hung forgotten for 200 years until they became the most sought-after works in art history. Out of about 35 Vermeer paintings in existence (and probably no more than 50 that he ever painted), the Rijks is proudly displaying 28 of them, including rarely seen religious works and paintings from collections in Dublin, Germany, and the UK.
Vermeer’s use of color is amazing. My thanks to Nina Heyn for choosing to feature this exhibition.
For those who can’t make it to the Netherlands, the Rijksmuseum’s website has an online “tour” of the Vermeer exhibition, with excellent high-resolution images, at https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/johannes-vermeer. The webpage might be a little hard to navigate at first, but it’s worth the effort!
My family and I were fortunate to get tickets and visit the exhibit two weeks ago. It was fantastic. If you have tickets and haven’t seen it yet, you are in for a treat. We traveled from Pennsylvania and on the way ran into another gentleman who was specifically going to see the exhibit as well.
That is so wonderful. I love that museum
I see The Woman in Blue as pregnant and the letter being from her husband (or grown son) in a war and with the map following his journeys and battles.