The Largest Ever Vermeer Exhibition Attracts Hundreds of Thousands

On view at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum is currently the largest Vermeer exhibition to have ever been curated. It features 28 of the Dutch master’s 36 surviving works, seven of which have not been on display in the Netherlands in over 200 years. Vermeer paintings are rarely lent out, but an exception has been made for this exhibition. Brought back to their native Netherlands from New York, Washington D.C., London, Berlin, Dresden, Frankfurt, and The Hague, 24 paintings have been added to the four in the Rijksmuseum’s permanent collection. The works make up what The Guardian’s Laura Cumming has deemed a “near perfect show”—only “near perfect” for it is missing Vermeer’s The Art of Painting, which, for reasons unknown, was refused to the exhibition by Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum. 

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This exhibition is remarkable for a number of reasons. Novel Macro-XRF and RIS scanning technologies (which reveal the molecules present in paint layers) were used in preparation for this exhibition to unveil elements that were covered up by the artist that we have come to know as infallible. Viewers have the opportunity to gain insight into Vermeer’s glorious mastery of light and understand more of his perception of the middle-class domestic life he depicted in his works. Through a close study of his paintings, viewers may become aware of the consciousness with which he created scenes and created details, ones so minor they could have been immortalized by chance. 

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The size of Vermeer’s exhibited oeuvre is perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the exhibition. A collection of the artist’s works comparable to this one in scale has not been exhibited since 1996, when the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague in collaboration with the National Gallery of Washington D.C. displayed 23 of his works. With five more works than the 1996 show, the Rijksmuseum’s Vermeer exhibition inspires awe. It displays the artist’s thematic progression from exteriors to interiors in his portrayal of quotidian life, one whose nuances can be appreciated literally more than ever before. Viewers enter the exhibition with the reverence and anticipation fit for the experience of seeing paintings that have never before been seen in the same space, perhaps not even by Vermeer himself. They may then be even more touched by the delicacy of subjects’ expressions and the interweave of life and material in Vermeer’s scenes. Vermeer captures the reality of unglamorous life with unmatched gracefulness; of the first painting in the exhibition, The Little Street (1658-59), Cumming writes that it is “so infinitely more beautiful than the scene it depicts.” 

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Johannes Vermeer, The Little Street, 1658-9, Rijksmuseum

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The Rijksmuseum’s Vermeer allows the artist to become alive, not only through the near totality of his body of work, but also through his process. Vermeer begins to assume the life he had before he occupied untouchable greatness. Viewers are reminded of the tangible elements of his mastery, allowed to look longer into his world. They can then reflect on the mystery of Vermeer’s subjects and scenes, of his deeper intentions, beyond his physical process revealed by the latest technologies. 

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Taco Dibbits, director general of the Rijksmuseum, said of the project that it is “not just a once in a lifetime: this is a now or never.” While technologies may continue to reveal Vermeer’s artistry, the assembly of 28 of his paintings in one space—one that can reveal so much more of Vermeer as an artist and as a man—may never again be possible. His works are too precious for museums to risk loaning or borrowing. An unmissable exhibition, Vermeer is on view at the Rijksmuseum until June 4th, 2023. One who does not have the chance to visit in person may still admire the collection in the Rijksmuseum’s digital exploration: Closer to Johannes Vermeer.

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Johannes Vermeer, The Girl with a Pearl Earring, 1665, Mauritshuis Museum

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