The blockbuster exhibition that forced the Amsterdam museum to open overtime to accommodate public demand ends this Sunday. One of the artist's most famous paintings, “The Girl with a Pearl Earring,” has now gone home to the Mauritshuis in The Hague, causing some confusion among visitors but not dampening public enthusiasm for this once-in-a-lifetime exhibition.
According to the museum, this was the first time that 28 of the 37 works whose authorship is attributed "to the 17th century master Johannes Vermeer" were brought together. Last November, when the list of Vermeer's works that would be on display was announced, the director of the Rijksmuseum, Taco Dibbits, said that this exhibition is "an unprecedented opportunity" for "all those who are passionate about Vermeer, but also for researchers, conservators and art historians" appreciate "such a large number of paintings in one space". This is because one of the particularities is the collection of works by Vermeer that are spread across 14 museums or private collections in seven countries, including seven paintings that have not been shown in the Netherlands for more than two centuries, wrote the Associated Press agency.
About the Baroque painter, who died almost 350 years ago and about whom little is still known about his personal life, portraits, landscapes and some paintings of a religious nature will be exhibited, revealing the mastery of the play of light and shadow, says the Rijksmuseum. Among the works on display, until June 4, are "Girl with a Pearl Earring", The Milkmaid", "The Geographer" and "Landscape of Delft", the city where Vermeer lived and worked.
In addition to the exhibition, the Rijksmuseum also promotes an interactive online "digital experience" that transports visitors to Vermeer's universe and allows you to view and enlarge the paintings, reproduced in high-resolution photographs.