Vermeer Newsletter
Below you will find the Vermeer Newsletter entries which date from the inception of this blog.
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Thank you for your interest in the Flying Fox and the Essential Vermeer Newsletter,
Jonathan Janson
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Learning to paint
THE YOUNG VERMEER
The Hague, Mauritshuis
May 12 – Aug 22, 2010
Dresden, Old Masters Picture Gallery
Sept 3– Dec 28, 2010
Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland
end of 2010 – Feb. 2011
Although Vermeer’s art has been consecrated by numerous special exhibitions for decades, until now, no single exhibition has focused on the myriad questions of painter’s artistic formation and early works. Hence, The Young Vermeer, which will travel from The Hague to Edinburgh and lastly to Dresden, will be the first chance to view Vermeer’s formative early works in close proximity and shall no doubt will be a milestone in Vermeer studies. All three venues feature Vermeer’s Diana and her Companions, Christ in the House of Martha and Mary and The Procuress. These three works have been completely restored so they can be appreciated in all their youthful intensity. The Dresden venue will also comprise their Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window.
An exhibition catalogue will provide visitors with in-depth investigation to this subject by distinguished experts of Dutch art.
The Dresden venue of the exhibition seems to be particularly rich. An ambitious educational project, based on recent investigations of the Dresden Vermeer Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window will include a full-scale, scientifically elaborated reconstruction of the room represented in this early masterpiece. The reconstruction will to be presented to the public next week. A website, currently under construction but already rather promising, will furhter explore Vermeer’s masterpiece.
Moreover, the educational project includes a 20-minute film which focused on the early Vermeer paintings and the Dresden paintings (The Procuress and Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window). Numerous lectures during are planned as well as an anthology, comprehending short literary texts by different authors dealing with the Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window.
Due to its uniqueness, the Young Vermeer exhibition has already begun to stir international attention assuring widespread interest. As details come available, they will be reported on the Flying Fox.
Special Vienna exhibition: The Art of Painting
Vermeer : The Art of Painting
25 January – 25 April 2010
Kunsthistorisches Museum
Maria Theresien-Platz, Vienna
http://www.khm.at/en/kunsthistorisches-museum/exhibitions/kommende-sonderausstellungen/vermeer/
The Art of Painting has a unique place in Vermeer’s oeuvre. Although it was very likely not executed as a commission, it never left the artist’s studio. Even after Vermeer’s death, which left his family with enormous financial problems, his widow Catharina tried to prevent a sale of this precious painting. Most likely, it was made as a showcase piece to be presented to connoisseurs and potential customers. The exhibition investigates a number of facets of this most complex of Vermeer’s compositions.
Besides extensive technological studies regarding the work’s state of conservation, several central subjects are faced including the complex iconography supported by period documentation. Some of the props in the picture will be on display; a period chandelier, tapestry, wallmap as well as a precise reconstruction of a slashed doublet worn by the painter.
Other questions are investigated as well. Does the painting represent Vermeer’s real studio? What does the painting reveal about Vermeer’s working methods? Which pigments did painter utilized? How was the composition developed? Did the painter make use of optical devices?
Numerous loans from European and American museums and private collections and historical documents from Dutch archives provide a springboard for discovering Vermeer’s masterpiece.
In addition the Kunsthistorisches Museum displays paintings, sculptures and details of films by contemporary artists (George Deem, Maria Lassnig, Peter Greenaway etc.) whose creation were inspired by Vermeer’s Art of Painting.
Milkmaid booklet
Vermeer: The Milkmaid
by Walter Liedtke
from the MET website:
The Milkmaid painted by Johannes Vermeer about 1657-58, is one of the most popular pictures of all time, and will be on loan from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, to The Metropolitan Museum of Art from September 9 through November 29, 2009, in celebration of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s sail to Manhattan on behalf of the Dutch East India Company.
This 36-page catalogue discusses the painting’s style, meaning, place within Vermeer’s oeuvre, its first owner and later history. The author reveals that a long tradition of amorous milkmaids and kitchen maids in Netherlandish art is continued here with such subtle understatement that the artist’s intentions have been misunderstood for generations. The Metropolitan’s own five paintings by Vermeer and seven other Dutch pictures in the collection are also included in the exhibition and discussed in this generously illustrated publicati.
A milkmaid visits New York
Vermeer’s Masterpiece,”The Milkmaid”
Sept. 10 -Nov. 29, 2009
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Just out is Carol Vogel’s NYT report of Vermeer’s Milkmaid coming to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in September, 2009.
Although no blockbuster exhibition is planned for her arrival be warned, the humble, but most majestic of all maids is sure enough to draw important crowds. So now, in one swoop, Vermeer both serious enthusiasts and the curious can take in 6 Vermeer paintings (the MET already has 5) at one time, walk a few blocks down to the Frick and see three more.
That’s about ¼ of the Delft Master’s surviving output.
The only other loan will be a drawing by Dutch artist Jacob Backer, Woman With a Jug, from about 1645.
Amsterdam sends a love letter to Paris (via Vancouver)
The Dutch Golden Age: From Rembrandt to Vermeer
October 7, 2009 – February 7, 2010
Pinacothèque de Paris
Like it or not, some important Vermeer paintings are doing pretty impressive legwork. Seeing they are all over the place, if you are planning Vermeer–related travel then please consult the Flying Fox Vermeer Tracker page to avoid being let down. Here is the latest update.
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-related symposium
Holland’s Golden Age in America: Collecting the Art of Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Hals
Friday and Saturday, May 15-16
Presented by the Center for the History of Collecting in America at the Frick Art Reference Library
United States art collections holds more than 1/3 of Vermeer’s known out put (14 out of 36). How did and why did they get there?
from the Frick website:
This two-day symposium will explore the growing taste for Dutch Old Masters among collectors of the Gilded Age and beyond, such as Henry Marquand, Benjamin Altman, John G. Johnson, Henry Clay Frick, and Norton Simon. Peter Sutton, Executive Director of the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, will give the keynote address.
The event is free but registration is required. For more information or to register, please call (212) 547-6894 or email centerprograms@frick.org. The symposium is made possible through the generosity of the Consulate-General of the Kingdom of The Netherlands with additional support from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.
A not-very-special special and a digital gem
The Rijksmuseum has developed a webspecial to flank their temporary exhibition of Vermeer’s Woman Holding a Balance normally housed at the NGA. It briefly investigates 3 aspects of Vermeer’s painting with comparative details of the Milkmaid (Rijksmuseum), Woman in Blue Reading a Letter (Rijksmuseum) and the Woman Holding a Balance (NGA). This special is nothing special, mind you, even though it might interest those who tip their toes into the water for the first time.
Lest one be disappointed at a missed chance (the code and text of the project must not have required more than a few hours to put together) visitors should remember that the Rijksmuseum offers a great deal when compared with other museums which house Vermeer paintings, especially, if you know where to dig. The quality digital scans of the museums’s holdings plus the depth of collection information can be daunting. Compare for example, the digital scans of the two Vermeers in the London National Gallery which cannot be downloaded by the viewer and bear unsightly watermarks capable of souring even the staunchest Vermeer devotee.
No doubt, the best part of this special are the downloadable images readily accessible on the press release page. In particular, the hi-resolution image Woman Holding a Balance is so accurate in color and exposition that it easily betters any printed image I have ever seen, a digital gem of sorts. The shot of the exhibition installation with the Milkmaid, Woman Holding a Balance and Woman in Blue Reading a Letter is moving (see image above photo: Jeroen Swolfs) if one recalls the time the Milkmaid and Woman Holding a Balance were hung together in Amsterdam in 1696 (see the post on the exhibition below).
Following the Rijksmuseum’s policy, the downloads are free for everyone and require no sworn oaths or bureaucratic sign-ups. Their heart is in the right place.
webspecial:
http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/vermeer?lang=en
press release and images of the paintings on display:
http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/pers/tentoonstellingen/vermeer?lang=en
To see something new, go back to the sources
Essential Vermeer interview with Jonathan Lopez, author of the The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren.
Han van Meegeren, the man who made Vermeers for decades, is justifiably the most written-about forger of all times. The most recent and original book on the topic is written by New York art historian Jonathan Lopez. Lopez casts new light on an old story by fine tuning the results of years of patient research.
Two key points of the book are Van Meegeren’s hitherto underplayed Nazi sympathies and the mind set which allowed the greatest forger of all times to dupe the leading art specialists of his time. In order to explain the chasm between today’s unanimous view of Van Meegeren’s fakes as unsightly imitations and their original enthusiastic reception as true masterworks by Vermeer, Lopez reveals that “a fake doesn’t necessarily succeed or fail according to the fidelity with which it replicates the distant past but on the basis of its power to sway the contemporary mind.”
Jonathan opened up to an interview in which he explains what went into the book’s making and some fascinating side thoughts on Van Meegeren the man, whose brilliant darkness is probably better understood by Lopez than anyone else.
Woman Holding a Balance travels to the Rijksmuseum
Woman Holding a Balance
11 March to 1 June 2009
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Vermeer’s Milkmaid and Woman Holding a Balance will be temporarily reunited in Amsterdam after 300 years. Vermeer devotees will recall that these two paintings were auctioned off there to the same buyer at the Dissius sale of 21 Vermeer paintings in 1696, 21 years after the artist had died.
Both works achieved handsome sums, 175 and 155 guilders respectively, inferior only to the much larger View of Delft at 200. Let’s remember that the average Dutch worker’s wage was something like 500 to 700 guilders per year.
The man who was willing to pay the price, Isaac Roooleuw, a Mennonite merchant, clearly knew what he was getting. He was a painter. However, Roooleuw enjoyed them very little since five years later he was forced to sell them by foreclosure, each to a different buyer.
Although these works are divergent in theme and technique and were made years apart, I can’t think of a more revealing couple in all of Vermeer’s oeuvre. The Milkmaid is the personification of earthly sunlight. The Woman Holding a Balance, on the other hand, possesses a moon-like splendor that when observed directly, eclipses even it own complicated allegorical structure. The viewer has the sensation that it is possible to physically penetrate the space of picture’s crystal-clear penumbra had it not been for the sacral figure of the young woman who waits for her scales to balance.
I do hope that they will be displayed in close proximity.
Van Meegeren conference at the MFA
Vermeer and Van Meegeren: The Real and the Faux
Jonathan Lopez, author of The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren, and Ronni Baer, William and Ann Elfers Senior Curator European Paintings
Wed, Feb 25, 7 pm
Remis Auditorium
Dutch art forger Han van Meegeren became a folk hero at the end of World War II when he confessed to selling a fake Vermeer to Hermann Goering. Author Jonathan Lopez and curator Ronni Baer discuss the extravagantly sordid life of the world’s most notorious art forger and what he did to the image of the Vermeer we know and love.
Book signing follows.
<http://www.mfa.org/calendar/event.asp?eventkey=36897&date=2/25/2009>
Vermeer Tunes
Traditional Music in the Time of Vermeer
by Adelheid Rech
Why a study of Dutch 17th c. folk music on a Vermeer site?
Perhaps too often the sublime order and technical perfection of the Vermeer’s compositions lure us into forgetting that the artist was brought up in a tavern run by his no-frills, hard-working father. In Dutch taverns, brawls, business deals, cursing and serious drinking went on from sunrise until late night. Every now and then, a knife was pulled (as the saying goes “one hundred Dutchmen, one hundred knives”).
But taverns were also scenes of harmless entertainment and joyfully congregation with plenty of music.
A slice of the artist’s life never appear in his paintings, a life jam-packed with popular religious and secular festivities, riotous gatherings, joyous marriages and solemn processions that marked the passage of the year each with its own music. No, not the music you would expect to issue from any of Vermeer’s dreamlike compositions, but simple, infectious melodies, true “hits” of the moment which were spread by itinerant musicians. These tunes charmed lovers, delighted children and made the grueling toil of daily life a bit more bearable.
This multi-part study explores hurdy-gurdys, shawms and rommelpots and other instruments you most likely have never heard of.
So have a peek and take listen to the musical world behind the the paintings you know so well.
Vermeer lecture in Genoa
The Italian art historian Stefano Zuffi will be speaking of Johannes Vermeer February 20 Palazzo Ducale, Genoa.
February 20, 2009
Società di letture e conversazioni scientifiche a Palazzo Ducale, Palazzo Ducale, Genoa
information and participation: 010/581584 (Registration is obligatory)
The MET shows a 6th Vermeer
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.
With the help of Lee Rosenbaum’s timely reporting on CultureGRll (artsJournal) and some detective work of my own, let’s take a look at the painting’s history.
- The Young Woman Seated at a Virginal is presumabley painted by Vermeer c. 1670.
- The picture is documented for the first time in 1904, when it was published in the preliminary catalogue by Dr. Wilhelm Bode of the collection of Alfred Beit, a South African-born diamond magnate who rivaled the great early 20th-century art acquisitions of Americans such as Frick and Mellon.
- Before and during the World War II, it was unanimously recognized by scholars, including Wilhelm Bode, Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, A.B. de Vries, Eduard Plietzsch and Ludwig Goldscheider.
- Following the dramatic Van Meegeren affair of Vermeer forgeries, De Vries, the Director of the Rijksmuseum, the leadingVermeer scholar, expressed doubts about the authenticity of the picture published in 1948. De Vries changed his mind, in favor of the painting, and wrote several letters saying that if his book were to go into a third edition he would rehabilitate the picture.
- When Beit died, the picture passed to his brother, Otto Beit, and then the latter’s son, Sir Alfred Beit, who eventually, in 1960, placed the picture on consignment with a London dealer.
- Baron Frédéric Rolin of Brussels, an occasional collector of Old Masters and dealer in tribal art, sees and falls in love with it. Aware of the doubtful attribution to Vermeer, he acquired it in exchange four works from his collection, paintings by Klee, Signac, Bonnard and Riopelle.
- Lawrence Gowing (1970) and Christopher Wright (1976) continued to accept it, but others dismissed it.
- In 1993, Sotheby’s was approached by Baron Rolin, with a request to undertake new research on the painting.
- A complete scientific study was begun in 1995 by Libby Sheldon of University College London, in collaboration with her colleague Catherine Hassall, and in 1997 Nicola Costaras of the Victoria and Albert Museum joined this team.. The investigation demonstrated that the picture was unquestionably 17th-century and that also that its technical composition was entirely consistent with Vermeer’s known working methods. In particular, the composition of the ground layers was found to be entirely comparable with other works by the artist, and the pigments used were also appropriate.
- Rolin dies in 2002, and the painting is offered for sale by his heirs.
- Sotheby’s auctions the painting to an unknown bidder for $30 million.
- The painting is shown briefly at the Philadelphia Museum. The buyer finally turns out to be the number one suspect, Steve Wynn the Las Vegas casino mogul and art collector.
- The painting disappears in Wynn’s main office.
- It is exhibited in Tokyo along with other 6 other Vermeer’s from August 2 – December 14, 2008.
- Norm Clarke of the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that the painting was sold by Wynn to an unknown buyer for $30 million.
- The painting raises its head for the last time on Dec. 29 in Gallery 14A of the European paintings galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, It is labeled as from a “Private Collection.” It will be on view until June 1.
Samuel van Hoogstraten Symposium
The universal art of Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627-1678), painter, writer and courtier
Symposium: 9 January 2009
Universiteit van Amsterdam – Agnietenkapel
Oudezijdsvoorburgwal 231
NL-1012 EZ Amsterdam
The Netherlands
information from the organizers:
The versatile painter, poet, courtier and European traveller Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627-1678), one of Rembrandt’s pupils, has received much scholarly attention in the last two decades. Whereas older historians allotted him a marginal role as a minor figure in his master’s studio, he is now recognized for his central position in the world of art and letters in the Dutch Golden Age. This new evaluation is mainly due to careful studies of his treatise on painting, Inleyding tot de Hooge Schoole der Schilderkonst (Introduction to the Academy of Painting, 1678). His book has been mined for unique insights not only into Rembrandt’s working methods but also into profounder problems relative to Dutch art and culture, such as pictorial realism, imitation and illusion, the rise of landscape and still life and the status of the “learned artist.” Whereas traditional Rembrandt scholarship seems to have hit upon the limits posed by the available documents on the artist, the work of pupils like Van Hoogstraten keeps offering new possibilities for research. Recently, Van Hoogstraten’s book was allotted a place in the canon of Key Texts for the Cultural History of the Low Countries.
This conference will be the first meeting of Van Hoogstraten specialists from various countries, who will bring their different approaches and scholarly traditions to bear on his art and writing.
confirmed speakers:
Dr. Jan Blanc (Université de Lausanne)
Prof. Celeste Brusati (University of Michigan)
Dr. Herman Colenbrander (independent scholar, Amsterdam)
Dr. Hans-Jörg Czech (Wiesbaden Museum)
Dr. Michiel Roscam Abbing (independent scholar, Amsterdam)
Dr. Paul Taylor (The Warburg Institute, London)
Dr. Thijs Weststeijn (University of Amsterdam)
further information & registration
download program (pdf)
Lecture: Vermeer’s painting techniques
from the: Norton Simon press release
Vermeer’s Painting Techniques: Time Stilled and Light Made Tangible
Melanie Gifford, Research Conservator, Scientific Research Department, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Saturday, January 3, 2009, 4:00 p.m.
Vermeer’s paintings suggest that time has been momentarily stopped, giving the viewer leisure to explore his light-filled rooms and contemplate his pensive figures. Technical study of Vermeer’s materials and methods has revealed painting practices the artist developed to achieve these luminous effects, and artistic choices he made to create a timeless and self-contained world. Melanie Gifford explores A Lady Writing in the context of Vermeer’s techniques throughout his career, illustrated with close details and microscopic images of the paintings that give a new view of his extraordinary gifts.
Vermeer’s Love Letter visits Vancouver
Vermeer, Rembrandt and the Golden Age of Dutch Art: Masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum
Vancouver Art Gallery
May 9 to September 13, 2009
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.
Van Meegeren Lecture in Washington
I would not miss the lecture or the book.
The Man Who Made Vermeers:
Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren
Sunday, January 11, 2009, 2:00 p.m.
East Building Concourse Auditorium, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Jonathan Lopez discusses aspects of his recently published book, The Man Who Made Vermeers: Han van Meegeren’s Life in Forgery. Book signing to follow. Sunday Lectures at the National Gallery are free and open to the public on a first-come-first-serve basis.
BTW, The Man Who Made Vermeers is fifth of the 10 Amazon Best Books of 2008 in the Arts & Photography section. Well deserved.
Europeana blues
Although the European Union’s new Europeana digital library may be a boon for art historians, it will remain shut down until January instead of mid December as previously announced. Inspired by nothing less than the ancient Library of Alexandria, the ambitious project will eventually employ the state-of-the-art technologies allowing users to access to films, paintings, photographs, sound recordings, maps, manuscripts, newspapers, and documents as well as books held in European libraries. A quick search on “Rembrandt,” for instance, turns up 1,747 paintings, etchings and drawings all in one place.
The downed prototype contained roughly two million digital items, all of them already in the public domain. However, some will be inevitably be plagued by issues linked to copyright and online use.
If you happen to be interested in the tech side of Europeana’s setback, this article is reveals what went on behind the scenes: Obvious Mistakes Caused Europeana Site Failure.
Steadman lecture
Philip Steadman, the English architect who stirred up so much discussion with his book about Vermeer and the camera obscura, will be giving a lecture called Anamorphosis in Holland in the 17th Century: Van Hoogstraten, Fabritius and Vermeer at the National Gallery in London, Saturday 13 December, 10.30am – 4pm.
I expect he will be examining the intriguing lid of the painted virginal in Vermeer’s Lady Standing at a Virginal.
See my interview with Steadman here.
The price of fame
“When Johannes Vermeer painted Girl With a Pearl Earring more than 300 years ago, he couldn’t have foreseen how his iconic portrait would one day be reproduced – or just how tiny that portrait could be.
How tiny? A University of Montreal researcher has rendered the famous image within a single drop of liquid vitamin on a microscope’s glass slide, reducing the portrait’s dimensions to a mere 200 microns – about the width of two human hairs.”
If that is not enough, read the whole article.
Update: the travelling Vermeer count
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 Century 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.
Not all are elated as the NTV who sponsors the event. Read Didier Rykner’s The Louvre without Vermeer at the Art Tribune.
The Lacemaker’s voyage adds a notch to the current “travelling-Vermeer count, 2008-2010″ which now stands firm at 13 (two pictures make two trips each). This boils down to the fact that one third of Vermeer’s known artistic output will be travelling tens of thousands of miles within the span of a mere two years.
- The Astronomer – Atlanta 2008
- The Little Street – Tokyo 2008
- Diana and her Companions – Tokyo 2008
- Christ in the House of Martha and Mary – Tokyo 2008
- Young Woman Seated at the Virginals – Tokyo 2008
- Woman with her Maid – Tokyo 2008
- Girl with the Wineglass – Tokyo 2008
- Lady Writing – Pasadena 2008
- Woman with a Pearl Necklace – Rome 2008
- The Lacemaker – Tokyo and Kyoto 2009
- The Astronomer – Minneapolis 2010
- Christ in the House of Martha and Mary – The Hague 2010
- The Procuress – The Hague – 2010
Europeana: think culture (big)
Europe is thinking big and has just launched Europeana.eu, a huge digital library with more than 2 million digital items drawn from the museums and galleries, archives, libraries and audio-visual collections of 26 European countries. For Vermeer people, there are already very nice surprises. Click on the links below and then click on the thumbnails for enlargements. Be patient, some of them require lots of loading time, they are very big.
The View of Delft, The Milkmaid. The Love Letter, The Little Street, The Woman in Blue and The Girl with a Pearl Earring.
The man who got tired of his Vermeer
While no one expected Las Vegas resort developer Steve Wynn to hold his Vermeer forever, he seems to have become disenchanted with the thought of being the only private holder of a genuine painting by Johannes Vermeer after only four years. The Las Vegas Review-Journal has it that Wynn recently sold the Young Woman Seated at the Virginals painting purchased four years ago for the sum of $30 million. Neither the new selling price nor the identity of the buyer is known.
After languishing in limbo for years, a team of leading specialists proposed it as a secure addition to Vermeer’s limited oeuvre after 10 years of extensive research. Wynn snapped it up at Sothebey’s and soon after displayed it in the now defunct Wynn Las Vegas Gallery. It then adorned his personal office. Recently it resurfaced at the Vermeer and the Delft Style exhibition in Tokyo on view until December 14, 2008.
Since its rehabilitation as an authentic Vermeer, almost no one has come forward publicly to cast doubts on the work’s authenticity even though the general consensus seems to comment negatively on its artistic merit. See my take.
Bad Vermeers, great book
In New York I recently met Jonathan Lopez whose The Man Who Made Vermeers has just been published. It is about the most colossal art forgery of all times: the fake Vermeer’s by Dutchman Han van Meegeren. Four years of intense research (Lopez is an artist himself and knows Dutch) and superlative writing skills gives new dimensions to a well-known story. Lopez reveals the master forger as an arch-opportunist, a cunning liar, and a fervent sympathizer of the fascist cause from as early as 1928. Deftly reconstructing an insidious network of illicit trade in the art market’s underworld, Lopez allows few reputations to emerge unscathed in this gripping incredibly readable book. Moreover, Lopez provides a plausable response to the question which all those who have taken up the case have tactfully avoided or inadequately addressed: how could the most renowned museum curators, art dealers and private collectors been taken by fakes which appear almost laughable today?
Even if you are like me and have until now turned a cold shoulder to the Van Meegeren story, the The Man Who Made Vermeers is a must-read. The L.A. Times book review says why.
Lopez will be speaking at the MET on November 14, 2008 , 6:00 pm. along with Walter Liedtke, curator of European painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Lopez will be lecturing in other places too.
For the eye and monitor
For the first time in Italy, an impressive selection of works from the world’s most important collection of 17th century Dutch and Flemish paintings can be admired in Rome including Vermeer’s Woman with a Pearl Necklace. The exhibition is open from November 11, 2008 to February 15, 2009.
One welcomed spinoff for image buffs is a 1.2 MB hi-res image of the Woman with a Pearl Necklace offered free by the exhibition’s press office. Click here, scroll down and download. There are 16 other images as well.
