Velázquez, Rembrandt, Vermeer. Parallel Visions
Museo del Prado, Madrid June 2-August 29, 2019
Velázquez, Rembrandt, Vermeer. Parallel visions is the result of an extensive and important research project on the part of the Museum arising from a collaborative agreement with the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, which will be lending a significant group of works, in which ties between late 16th- and early 17th-century Dutch and Spanish painting will be investigated.
The exhibition will offer a reflection on the pictorial traditions represented by Spain and the Low Countries. While the art-historical literature, particularly that generated in Holland, has considered these traditions as essentially different, this exhibition will aim to juxtapose the historical myths and artistic realities of the two countries and to reflect on the numerous traits that they share.
Curator: Alejandro Vergara,
Museo del Prado Senior Curator Flemish Painting and Northern Schools (to 1700).
Exploring the Physical and Psychological Realities in Vermeer’s Genre Paintings
Lecture by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.
Wallace Collection, London November 11, 2019 (17:00–18:30)
Vermeer's genre paintings depict men and women engaged in daily activities that seem familiar and related to our own lives. We greatly admire his ability to depict the physical reality of these scenes, whether through the shimmer of satin, the translucency of glass, or his mastery of light. Less noticed, however, is how successfully he conveyed the inner life of his figures. This talk by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. will examine this important aspect of Vermeer's artistic genius by examining the types of moments he portrayed, and the relationships of his figures to their milieu.
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. is Senior Advisor to The Leiden Collection. He recently retired as curator of Northern Baroque painting at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and as Professor of Art History at the University of Maryland. During his tenure at the National Gallery from 1975 to 2018, Wheelock oversaw a significant expansion of the Gallery’s collection of Dutch and Flemish paintings and organized a number of major exhibitions.
Evening lecture general admission: £15
Evening lecture concession: £13
New Four-Part Vermeer TV Series
Silenzi di Vermeer (The Silences of Vermeer)
Tomaso Montanari 2018-2019
Author: Tomaso Montanari Director: Luca Criscenti Director of photography: Francesco Lo Gullo Editor: Emanuele Redondi and Anjan Di Leonardo Music: Giorgio Giampà Language: Italian Produced by: Land Comunicazioni
On January 11, (9:15 P.M), Rai5, the Italian public cultural TV channel, will broadcast the fourth and final episode of the four-part series, I Silenzi di Vermeer (Vermeer's Silences).
The series' author, the Italian art historian, academic and newspaper columnist Tomaso Montanari, is well known to the Italian public for his brilliant multi-episode TV series on Caravaggio and Bernini (see information below).
Guided along voyages throughout America and Europe to rediscover Vermeer and his surviving 36 canvases, the spectator is awarded a number of surprisingly fresh insights into the artist's seemingly faceless art by means of an exacting but intuitive reading of the thematic content and composition of each work, while simultaneously fleshing out the circumstances in which the artist lived and painted. To enrich the viewer's parallel voyage, the narrative is peppered with lesser-known but evocative experiences of the collectors, art historians, writers and painters who, like Montanari himself, have endeavored to sound the silent depths of Vermeer's art.
I Silenzi di Vermeer confirms Montanari's aptitude as a narrator as well as his commitment to divulging the works of the great artists of the past. Drawing force from an unmediated participation and complete command of historical material, he is able to arouse intellectual inquiry and transmit the essential poetry of a work of art even to the neophyte, in effect, transporting him back in time to the moment of its creation. Perhaps the only shortcoming of the series, at least for the moment, is that it is accessible only to those familiar with Italian.
All four episodes will be accessible online at a date to be announced.
Broadcasting schedule:
December 21, 2018 | La poesia di ogni giorno (The Poetry of Everday Life)
December 28, 18 | Il dentro e il fuori (The Inside and the Outside)
January 4, 2019 | Cartografia d’amore (The Cartography of Love)
January 11, 2019 | Con altri sensi (With Other Senses)
Highly recommended for those who speak Italian, are Montanari's:
La Liberta' di Bernini (The Freedom of Bernini; 8 episodes; Land Comunicazioni)
Abbie Vandivere Lectures in Stockholm and London
The Girl in the Spotlight: A Technical Examination of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring
Abbie Vandivere
Stockholm University, Department of Culture and Aesthetics, Stockholm, Sweden January 28, 2019 (4.00 p.m.–5.00 p.m.)
The Auditorium, Manne Siegbahn Building, Frescativägen 24E
Dr. Abbie Vandivere will give a lecture about the recent technical examination of Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, the most beloved painting in the collection of the Mauritshuis.
The painting was last examined in 1994, during a conservation treatment. Although further restoration was not required, major advances in non-invasive technical analysis have been made over the last 25 years making it possible to learn more about how Vermeer painted his most iconic work, as well as the materials that he used.
Earlier this year, the painting was the subject of an in-depth scientific examination project: The Girl in the Spotlight. The technical examination was conducted over a two-week period in front of the museum public. An international team of experts used the latest scientific technology to examine the Girl, including: macro x-ray fluorescence scanning, near-infrared imaging, optical coherence tomography, 3D digital microscopy, macro-x-ray powder diffraction, colour/gloss/topography scanning, and the re-examination of paint samples taken 1994. For more information see Vandiver's informative blog dedicated to the project; Girl with a Blog.
Dr. Abbie Vandivere is a Paintings Conservator at the Mauritshuis, and the Head Researcher for the project The Girl in the Spotlight. She also coordinates the Technical Art History MA programme at the University of Amsterdam. She received her PhD in 2013: "From the Ground Up: Surface and Sub-surface effects in Early Netherlandish Paintings." Before this, she received her postgraduate diploma in Paintings Conservation from the Courtauld Institute in London, and BA from Princeton University.
Vermeer Goes to Abu Dhabi
Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age Masterpieces from the Leiden Collection and the Musee du Louvre
Louvre Abu Dhabi (Saadiyat Cultural District Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates) February 14–May 18, 2019
This exhibition presents ninety-five objects, drawn largely from The Leiden Collection, with works from the Musée du Louvre, the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the Rijksmuseum. It highlights the artistic cross referencing that occurred in the Netherlands during the seventeenth century. Among the works on display are Rembrandt's Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyes and Minerva in Her Study and Vermeer's The Lacemaker. Also exhibited in the Young Woman Seated at a Virginal, from the Leiden Collection. Other artworks from The Leiden Collection include those of Rembrandt's teacher Pieter Lastman, his friend and rival Jan Lievens, and his pupils Ferdinand Bol, Carel Fabritius and Arent de Gelder.
An illustrated catalogue featuring all 49 works including the ten Vermeer exhibited between the Tokyo and Osaka exhibitions will be available for purchase. Each day, tickets are designated into six entry windows. After entrance visitors may remain in the exhibition for an unlimited time.
The second venue will be held at Osaka :
Making the Difference: Vermeer and The Dutch Art
Museum of Fine Arts of Osaka February 16, 2019–May 12, 2019
In his article Johannes Vermeer and his Neighbors (2017), Hans Slager tentatively supposed that what has been traditionally believed to be the location of Vermeer's house in Delft—Oude Langendijk/corner Molenpoort alley—may not be correct. Following additional investigation, Slager strengthened his case and has come to the conclusion that Vermeer's house was more likely located at the opposite (western) corner of the Molenpoort alley. In the past, this location had been dismissed for reasons that Slager now shows to be unfounded. In his new article, Vermeer's House Revisited, Slager details all of his arguments, which are supported by primary archival sources.
The Milkmaid
(perspective diagram showing octagonal gatleg table)
Johannes Vermeer
c. 1657–1661
Oil on canvas, 45.5 x 41 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Soon after Pieter Teding van Berkhout, a young scion of a landed gentry family from The Hague, made a visit to Vermeer's studio in June 1669, he wrote in his diary, "I went to see a celebrated painter named Vermeer." But Van Berkhout understood Vermeer's paintings differently than we do today. He described them not as "allegories" or "scenes of daily life," much less "masterpieces of light" or "suspended moments in time" that "exude silence." Van Berkhout wrote that the most "extraordinary and curious aspect" of Vermeer's art consists in "perspective."
This new and richly illustrated two-part study is the most comprehensive examination thus far undertaken into Vermeer and linear perspective. The first part considers how Vermeer and his contemporaries could have acquired knowledge of linear perspective needed to create the sensation of foreshortening and spatial recession in their paintings. The methods considered include geometric construction, the drawing frame, the pin-and-string method and the camera obscura. Each of these four methods is first examined in its functionality and practicality, and then weighed against correlating evidence exhibited in Vermeer's paintings.
The second part examines the perspective armature of each of his paintings, reveling their strengths, weakness and anomalies.
Also included are perspective diagrams of each painting, a list of period perspective manuals—many of which can be downloaded integrally in PDF format—a glossary of perspective terms as well as a list of writings focused on questions of Vermeer and perspective.
This slim but richly illustrated publication is the second volume in the Frick Diptych Series, which pairs an essay by Margaret Iacono, the Frick’s Associate Research Curator, with a literary piece by Academy Award-winning film director, producer and screenwriter James Ivory.
Particularity fascinating for Vermeer devotees is Iacono's 36-page essay, which examines the picture from its inception to the complicated financial transactions which brought the Maid and Mistress— the third and last Vermeer—to the collection of the New York magnate Henry Clay Frick, who assembled one of the finest private art collections in the world. While the painting's authorship has rarely been questioned, its oversized figures, dark background and anomalous execution have been a source of considerable debate. Iacono weighs the various sides and, after analyzing the work's theme and composition, provides the most insightful "picture" yet proposed of this luxurious but enigmatic canvas. She also discusses the recent technical examination of the picture performed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art conservation department which provides provisional—a full report is forthcoming—but exciting new evidence concerning work's compositional iter as well as its present condition, allowing us to gaze deeper into the artist's intentions and the picture-making process. Included is a revised provenance.
Margaret Iacono is associate research curator at The Frick Collection. Her areas of interest include northern European painting of the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries and the history of collecting. Most recently she organized Vermeer, Rembrandt and Hals: Masterpieces of Dutch Painting from the Mauritshuis
(2014), and also served as the Frick coordinator for The Frick Collection: Art Treasures in New York, held at the Mauritshuis, The Hague (2015).
James Ivory is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Films produced by his company Merchant Ivory Productions
(producer Ismail Merchant and script writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvalar) won six Academy Awards. For his work onCall Me by Your Name
(2017), which he wrote and produced, Ivory won awards for Best Adapted Screenplay from the Academy Awards, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Writers Guild of America, the Critics' Choice Awards, and the Scripter Awards, among others.
A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals Exhibited in China
Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection
The Long Museum (West Bund), Shanghai September 23, 2017–February 25, 2018 http://thelongmuseum.org/en/exhibition/overview/51dfps
From the Long Museum website: The Leiden Collection and Long Museum (West Bund) have collaborated to stage an exhibition of masterpieces from the celebrated Leiden Collection, the largest and most important collection of paintings from the Dutch Golden Age in private hands. The exhibition will open on September 23, 2017 and continue through February 25, 2018. It will feature 78 works, making it the largest showing of seventeenth-century Dutch art ever presented in China. The selections will comprise 12 works by Rembrandt van Rijn, two portrait paintings by Frans Hals, a recently attributed painting by Vermeer, and as well as masterpieces by other artists from the period.
The Leiden Collection, founded in 2003 by American collectors Dr. Thomas S. Kaplan and his wife, Daphne Recanati Kaplan, comprises some 250 paintings and drawings and represents one of the largest and most important assemblages of seventeenth-century Dutch paintings in private hands.
The collection is named after Rembrandt's native city in honor of the master's greatness and focuses on the works of Rembrandt and his followers, illuminating the personalities and themes that shaped the Golden Age over five generations. The collection is the most comprehensive representation of the Leiden artists known as fijnschilderen ("fine manner painters"), who concentrated on painting portraits, tronies (character studies), genre scenes, and history paintings.
About the exhibition curator:
Dr. Lara Yeager-Crasselt is the Curator of The Leiden Collection. She earned her Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Maryland with a specialty in seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish art.
The
National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin is staging a landmark exhibition
that explores the network of relationships among Dutch genre painters of the period 1650–1670. Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry will afford visitors and scholars insights into how Vermeer and contemporary painters of scenes of everyday life admired, inspired and rivaled each other.
Affluent Dutch citizens, who styled themselves as liefhebbers (lovers of art), were expected to be able to compare paintings, recognize artists' hands and point out stylistic and thematic borrowings from other artists. This exhibition invites visitors to take on the role of seventeenth-century art lovers and compare small groups of paintings that reflect the cross-currents of inspiration. Exhibition visitors will also be able to observe how each artist had a particular ways of inserting and disguising his borrowings, trying to surpass the others in verisimilitude, technical prowess and aesthetic appeal. This vibrant artistic rivalry contributed to the exceptionally high quality of their combined oeuvre.
The exhibition and accompanying catalogue benefits from an extensive research program, which will include a website that is currently being developed in collaboration with the Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD), The Hague.
Admission is always free and passes are not required.
Curators:
This exhibition is curated by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., curator of northern baroque paintings, National Gallery of Art, Washington; Adriaan E. Waiboer, head of collections and research, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin; and Blaise Ducos, curator of Dutch and Flemish paintings, Musée du Louvre, Paris.
Catalogue:
The exhibition and accompanying catalogue benefits from an extensive research program, which will include a website currently under development in collaboration with the RKD. This website will chart and illustrate painters' responses to each other's stylistic and thematic innovations. Currently, already over 1250 paintings are represented in the database RKDImages, which will be linked to each other on the basis of artistic relations, visualizing the exchange of artistic motives between the several artists. A technical research project, led by Melanie Gifford, Conservation Scientist at the National Gallery of Art, presently examines the exchanges of painting techniques and materials among Dutch genre painters of the period 1650–1675.
Lecture: Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry October 22 at 2:00
East Building Auditorium
Lecture
Innovation, Competition, and Fine Painting Technique: Marketing High-Life Style in the Dutch 17th Century
October 30 at 12:10 and 1:10
East Building Auditorium
Lecture:
More than Mimicry: The Parrot in Dutch Genre Painting
November 20 at 12:10 and 1:10
East Building Auditorium:
Lecture:
Time and Temporality in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Genre Painting
December 18 at 12:10 and 1:10
West Building Lecture Hall
Lecture:
Johannes Vermeer: An Artist of His Time Yet Timeless
January 7 at 2:00
East Building Auditorium
Concert:
Piffaro, The Renaissance Band
January 21 at 3:30
West Building, West Garden Court
Film:
A documentary film, entitled, Vermeer - The Man His Time His World, is currently in production, to be released in 2017 as one of the events associated with the National Gallery of Ireland's exhibition Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry. The film is directed by Jean-Pierre Cottet and produced by James Mitchell, as a co-production between iO Production (Paris) and Soho Moon Pictures (Dublin), with the support of Arté in France, PBS in USA, and RTÉ, Ireland's public service broadcaster. It will be broadcast on RTÉ One Television next summer to coincide with the exhibition during its run here.
Other venue: National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. October 22, 2017–January 21, 2018
In cooperation with 18 art institutions that house paintings by Vermeer, Google has launched a new monographic website called Meet Vermeer as a part of its Google Art Project website. The new project features an ample series of videos and richly illustrated introductory essays that address various aspects Vermeer's life and artistic afterlife, including the artist's technique, defining themes and critical reception. The project also vaunts a smartphone app called Pocket Gallery. Pocket Gallery transforms an iOS- or Android-based smartphone into an ultra-high resolution exhibition that brings the complete works of Vermeer into a single Augmented Reality museum, designed specifically for the project by Google and curated by art historians.
For the pleasure of the more discerning art lover or savvy art scholar, the California-based technical Goliath has turned its Art Camera—designed specifically for photographing works of art—on eight canvases by Vermeer creating the highest-ever resolution image ever made. In various works (e.g., The View of Delft, Girl with a Pearl Earring or The Geographer) the level of magnification is so astounding that we can question if greater magnification is any longer necessary, outside for purely conservational needs. The remaining works were photographed by the museums and collectors themselves and vary in resolution and color quality. The best high-resolution images include: Diana and her Companions, Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, The Milkmaid, The Little Street, The Glass of Wine, Girl with a Wineglass, The View of Delft, Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, Woman with a Pearl Necklace, A Lady Writing, The Geographer, The Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Love Letter, A Lady Standing at a Virginal and A Lady Seated at a Virginal. Both the newly photographed and museum images can been zoomed online, but they cannot be downloaded.
More than a thousand stamps currently in circulation are dedicated to the works of famous artists, such as Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, Rubens, Rembrandt and Vermeer. It is almost impossible to collect all of them; one must pick and choose in order to assemble a thematically coherent collection. Vermeer, one of the most intriguing artists in history, is an ideal candidate for a small collection.
Vitaliy Demin has compiled a complete list of all the stamps with Vermeer's works that are currently circulation all over the world, which counts fewer than 200 items. On display in this EV web article are all the available items from Mr. Demin's collection except a few non-perforated varieties, which, however, will be added later.
Vermeer's Woman in Blue Reading a Letter travels down under to Sydney
from the gallery website:
The Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age exhibition at the Gallery is devoted to the greatest Dutch painters of the seventeenth century and the flourishing artistic culture of the time.
This is a rare opportunity for Sydney audiences to experience 77 outstanding works of art by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Ruisdael, Hals, Steen, Dou, Lievens and Leyster—each masters of their respective genres—drawn from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the great national collection of the Netherlands.Rembrandt and the Dutch golden age presents a richly unfolding panorama of Dutch society in an era of unparalleled wealth, maritime power and cultural confidence. Vivid and compelling, the paintings encompass the tranquil Dutch landscape, the colorful life of the cities, Dutch society and morality, ships on the high seas and the characterful people who made the Dutch Republic such a success.
New Study of the Provenance of Vermeer's The Art of Painting
The Puzzle Solved? Notes on the Early Provenance of Vermeer's The Art of Painting sets out in well-considered detail the high probability that Vermeer's masterpiece did indeed, as suspected by some scholars, come to Vienna in 1745 at the time that Gerard van Swieten (1700–1772) took up his position as Empress Maria Theresa's personal physician. In addition, the paper shows that the Dutch doctor could not have come into possession of this painting if, in the immediate years following Vermeer's death (1675), the artist's wife, Catharina Bolnes, and his mother-in-law, Maria Thins, had failed to keep Vermeer's masterpiece safe in Delft. As will be shown, a chain of events set in motion by Maria Thins resulted in the painting leaving the Vermeer family to eventually come into the ownership of two Van Swieten generations.
Detailed Study of Vermeer's Neighborhood with House-by-House Database
Johannes Vermeer and his Neighbours (PDF)
Hans G. Slager October, 2017
It has been universally accepted that the mature Johannes Vermeer lived on Oude Langendijk in Delft, situated amidst the Catholic living quarter known as the Papist Corner. Following John Michael Montias 'Vermeer and His Milieu: A Web of Social History, published in 1989, however, no further research was conducted in regards to either the location of the artist's living quarters or the neighborhood in which he lived. Persuaded that a more accurate reconstruction of the Papist corner was possible, and that neighbors may influence the lives of its individual members, the independent researcher Hans Slager has examined afresh the circumstances of those who lived in the vicinity of Vermeer in the hopes of uncovering not only undiscovered information but clues for further research.
This new study of the Papist Corner investigates a wealth of housing and genealogical data in the light of house sales, taxation records, legal issues and other events, at times mundane, but nevertheless vital to the success of the reconstruction. Slager's analysis suggests that Vermeer's traditionally held residence on the Oude Langendijk may, in fact, be erroneous, and that his real residence may still physically exist.
Aside from the Papist neighborhood, other issues are addressed, such as the fate of the Mechelen inn, Van Ruijven's patronage and Van Leeuwenhoek's presumed friendship with Vermeer. Lastly, an analysis of the name linked to the two prominently pictured heraldic stems that appear on the two stained-glass windows in Vermeer's The Glass of Wine and The Girl with a Wine Glass reveals possible links to various Leiden fijnschilder painters. Ties between some of Vermeer's principal clients are also described in detail.
Necessarily, a study containing such a significant amount of data demands a selective rather than a story-telling approach so that all data is organized within a house-by-house scheme. Moreover, data is published in full in order to serve as a springboard for future investigation—there may still be more information on Vermeer, hopefully complimenting Montias' seminal study on Vermeer and his extended family.
An excellent introduction to the art of Johannes Vermeer based on 120 large and lavish details from his work. Each is provided with refreshing commentary, covering subject matter, technique and modes of picture-making, the origins of the objects he paints, comparisons of motifs, scholarly discussion concerning his work and more. Concise entries and illustrations of the 37 paintings currently given to Vermeer, including the disputed attributions. Preceded by a capsule biography.
Purchase of the volume provides the buyer with exclusive access to a website with high-resolution images of the complete paintings.
Price: €39.90
Languages: Dutch (Ludion, Antwerp), French (Hazan, Paris) and English (UK: Thames & Hudson, London - US: Abrams, New York)
Vermeer's Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window Begins Restoration
Image from the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister website
In March, 2017, the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meiste of Dresden removed Vermeer's Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window from the permanent exhibition in order to begin the restoration of the picture. The procedure will accompanied by an expert commission of five restorers and scientists from Dresden, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Vienna.
Click here to visit the museums website for further images and updates.
Considering its age, the painting is stable in terms of its conservation condition. Its surface, however, is characterized by severely darkened layers of varnish and old retouching, and this above all gave rise to the decision to restore the painting. The restoration is taking place in the paintings conservation department at the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden and is being performed by paintings conservator Dr. Christoph Schölzel. Accompanying the restoration is a research project about the painting, carried out in cooperation with the archaeometry laboratory at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden, the Doerner-Institut at the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen München, the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and The National Gallery in London.
Vermeer's Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window will be presented to the public when the renovation of the Gemäldegalerie in the Semperbau is complete and the museum reopens in 2019. It will be a highlight of the new permanent exhibition.
Vermeer-Rrelated Documentary
Vermeer-Beyond Time Directors: Jean-Pierre Cottet & Guillaume Cottet Opening in Dublin on June 17, 2017 and runs through to September 17.
A new feature documentary, VERMEER, BEYOND TIME will be released in cinemas this month ahead of the major Vermeer exhibition at the National Gallery of Ireland entitled Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry which opens on June 17.
French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Cottet adopts an imaginative and sensitive approach to his subject focusing on the work itself but also choosing to explore Vermeer's family life including his conversion to Catholicism, his artistic contemporaries and the wider world of the short-lived Dutch Golden Age of the 17th Century.
RTÉ will screen the documentary in early June. After this, the DVD will be available for purchase. More details about the screenings and sales points for the DVD to follow.
From the website:
In conjunction with the Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry exhibitive, the Connect Vermeer website grew out of a research project conducted by the National Gallery of Ireland in collaboration with the Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD). Through a series of interactive visualizations, Connect Vermeer allows users to discover the network of connections between Vermeer and his sixteen contemporaries. Users can discover the strength and likelihood of relationships between the seventeen artists, the impact of an individual artist's paintings on the work of his contemporaries, as well as how artists adopted, adapted and disguised elements, from their peers' work, in their own paintings.
From Oxford University press release:
Jane Jelley has taken a new path in this detective story. A painter herself, she has worked with the materials of his time: the cochineal insect and lapis lazuli; the sheep bones, soot, earth and rust. She shows us how painters made their pictures layer by layer; she investigates old secrets; and hears travelers' tales. She explores how Vermeer could have used a lens in the creation of his masterpieces, and made some experiments in her own studio to transfer images from projections directly to a canvas. She has found a reliable solution that corresponds to the scientific examination of Vermeer's work, which provides answers to some of the puzzles he left behind. The clues were there all along. After all this time, now we can unlock the studio door, and catch a glimpse of Vermeer inside, painting light.
Jane Jelley is a painter of still life and landscape who became interested in the unusual technical qualities of Vermeer's painting, and in the arguments about whether or not he might have used a camera obscura in his work. Jane lives and works in Oxford. More information about Jane and her work can be found on tracesofvermeer.com.
Limited Accessibility for Vermeer's The Music Lesson
Vermeer's The Music Lesson, it is not currently on public view, although it can be seen during pre-booked guided tours of the Buckingham Palace State Room until the 4 February. Details are available at the webpage below.
The painting will again be accessible to the general during the opening of the Buckingham Palace State Rooms between August and October 2018 (exact dates to be communicated–please check the Royal Collection Trust website near that time for more details).
Vermeer-Related Lecture at the Frick Collection in New York
Using Computed Weave Maps to Gain Art-Historical Insight from Vermeer's Canvases
by Dr. C. Richard Johnson, Jr. (Cornell University) May 2, 2017 | 4–6 p.m.
The Music Room, The Frick Collection, 1 East 70th Street, New York
From the Frick Collection website:
The Thread Count Automation Project (TCAP) (link is external) launched by Professor Johnson in 2007 discovered striped patterns in color-coded images of local thread densities obtained from digital image processing of x-radiographs of Old Master paintings on canvas. These striped patterns provide a "fingerprint" for pieces of canvas cut from the same roll. This spurred a four-year effort assisted by the late Walter Liedtke, one of the world's leading scholars of Dutch and Flemish paintings, to gather x-radiographs of all thirty-four paintings on canvas by Vermeer. Six matching pairs of roll-mates have been identified thus far that provide evidence regarding authentication, dating and —potentially—artistic intent. In addition to weave density maps, images were created of thread angle from their nominal horizontal and vertical directions. These angle maps provide forensic information regarding warp/weft thread designation and cusping, which offers insight into Vermeer's studio practice and the possible re-sizing of his paintings since their creation. The insights generated by computed weave maps arising from the application of digital image processing are pioneering contributions from engineering to the emerging field of computational art history.
After the presentation The Frick Collection's Associate Research Curator Margaret Iacono will hold a conversation with Dr. Johnson about his discoveries regarding some of Vermeer's masterpieces, including The Collection's iconic Mistress and Maid.
Image from the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister website
