On this page are listed exhibitions, conferences, multimedia events and publications of the recent past which are related to the life and/or work of Johannes Vermeer.

Click here to see Vermeer-related events of the past.

Click here to view a sortable table of all past, ongoing, and future Vermeer exhibitions.

Special Vermeer Exhibiton at the Newly Reopened Frick Collection in 2025

Special Vermeer Exhibiton at the Newly Reopened Frick Collection in 2025new logo

Vermeer’s Love Letters
June 18 –September 8, 2025
Frick Collection, New York

The Frick Collection will reopen in April 2025 (exact date to be announced), introducing significant changes and additions to its renowned New York City mansion. Among the highlights of the reopening is a groundbreaking Vermeer exhibition, Vermeer’s Love Letters,which will bring together three notable Vermeer paintings with a letter-writing theme: Mistress and Maid (Frick Collection), The Love Letter (Rijksmuseum), and Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid (National Gallery of Ireland). This exhibition will run from June 18 to September 8, 2025, and will showcase Vermeer's intimate depictions of letter-writing within a specially-designed gallery, offering an unparalleled viewing experience, and will offer visitors an opportunity to consider Vermeer’s treatment of the theme of letters as well as his depiction of women of different social classes.

Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid, Johannes Vermeer
Mistress and Maid, Johannes Vermeer
The Love Letter, Johannes Vermeer

The exhibition is curated by Dr. Robert Fucci, a distinguished expert on Vermeer from the University of Amsterdam, who will author a catalogue focused on the three works and their broader themes in seventeenth-century Dutch art.

In addition to the Vermeer exhibition, the museum’s extensive renovations include opening the second floor of the mansion to the public for the first time. This newly accessible space will feature ten galleries, including the Boucher Room in its original setting, along with displays of recently acquired objects, clocks, and watches. Visitors can also explore a new Cabinet Gallery on the first floor, which will exhibit rare drawings and sketches by artists such as Rubens, Degas, and Goya.

This reopening underscores the Frick's dedication to both its historic legacy and the enhancement of public access to its collections, aiming to captivate both new and returning visitors with its transformed and expanded spaces.

Vermeer's House in Delft?

Vermeer's House: Hans Slager rebufs Frans Grijzenhout's recent claims about the location of Johannes Vermeer's house new logo

http://www.essentialvermeer.com/misc/SLAGER-VermeersHouseAgainandtheJesuit%20Church.pdf

In his article "Vermeer's House Again and the Jesuit Church," Hans Slager critiques Frans Grijzenhout's recent claims about the location of Johannes Vermeer's house (published in "Finding Vermeer, Back to the Molenpoort") and the hidden Jesuit church in Delft. Grijzenhout relies on a 1674 taxation ledger to place Vermeer’s residence at the eastern corner of the Molenpoort, but Slager argues that this method is flawed due to the many unknowns, guesswork, and incomplete research. Instead, Slager maintains his previously reasoned likelihood that Vermeer lived on the western corner of the Molenpoort, in a house called Trapmolen. He emphasizes that there is no solid proof for Grijzenhout's theory and critiques his reliance on assumptions.

Furthermore, Grijzenhout's analysis of the Jesuit church's location on the Oude Langendijk is also challenged. Slager contends that Grijzenhout misinterprets historical documents and overlooks key archival data. Grijzenhout suggests the church was located in the second and third houses east of the Molenpoort, while Slager maintains that it was in the fourth and fifth house, supported by schematic reconstructions and archival data.

If you prefer, you can click here to view the PDF in a new tab.

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A Pulldown Database of Johannes Vermeer's Artistic, Social, and Personal Interactionsnew logo

https://www.essentialvermeer.com/social-diagram-cytoscape/social-encyclopedia/pulldown-vermeer-social-map.html

This interactive study is an exploration of the diverse and interconnected relationships that Johannes Vermeer maintained throughout his life with his professional, private mileau, and broader cultural setting. To illustrate these relationships, a list has been developed of individuals who may have come into contact, influenced, or been influenced by Vermeer, whether directly, or indirectly. This includes painters, clients, relatives, amateur scientists, writers, men of culture, as well as civic and religious officials.

Each entry is accompanied by an essential discourse on the individual's contributions or relevance in their respective fields, followed by their specific interactions or connections with Vermeer. The latter is indicated by an icon of Vermeer's signature.

Groot Serpent

Frans Grijzenhout revises the location of Vermeer's house new logo

Finding Vermeer
by Frans Grijzenhout

Art historians, historiographers, and archive researchers have long debated the precise location where Vermeer resided with his family in a house rented by his mother-in-law, Maria Thins, in the Papenhoek (Papists’ Corner) area of Delft, where Vermeer presumably painted for most of his career. Was it the house called Groot Serpent on the eastern corner of Oude Langendijk and Molenpoort, or Trapmolen, on the western corner?

Over the past several decades, art history literature, following the archivist A.J.J.M. van Peer’s lead, has virtually without exception asserted that it was the large Groot Serpent. However, archival researcher Hans Slager has recently submitted that Vermeer and his family family actually lived in the smaller Trapmolen. This location was embraced by Pieter Roelefs in the catalogue of the Rijksmuseum Vermeer retrospective of 2023.

However, Frans Grijzenhout, art historian of the Early Modern Period, now presents an archival source that has not yet been included in the debate on the location of Vermeer's house, overturning Slager's claim. Moreover, Grijzenhout brings forward arguments to establish the exact location on Oude Langendijk of the Jesuit church, a significnat landmark for Delft's Catholic community as well as for Vermeer and his family.

My Take

Essential Vermeer goes YouTube! (sort of)

After months of struggling to squash the formidable learning curve of producing video content, I've launched my latest intuitive: YouTube channel called My Take!: Vermeer’s Paintings One by One.

So why on earth did it ever come to this?

Well, in the last twenty years I’ve done my very best to present the most thorough and balanced view of Vermeer’s art on the Essential Vermeer capitalizing on the immense and largely unexplored potential of the internet in regards to art historical issues. One of my top priorities has been objectivity.

However, in recent years I've felt a growing need to communicate my own thoughts and feelings tempered by years of experience as a painter and ordinary person in front of extraordinary art.

The most efficient and effective means to communicate highly personalized content of this type is, I believe, via the video. It has the added advantage of allowing me to express myself with absolute freedom while maintaining the boundaries between the contents Essential Vermeer website and my videos clearly demarked.

I’ve just uploaded the first two videos: one on the Girl with a Flute, which the National Gallery of Art has officially demoted, and the other, A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals in the New York Leiden Collection.

Both presented quite a few thorns.



Have a look and let me know your reactions in the comments.