Washington, D.C., Vermeer exhibition reveals new findings on artist's masterpieces and true authorship

From Oct. 8, 2022 to Jan. 8, 2023, the National Gallery of Art in Washington will present Vermeer’s Secrets exhibition, during which the museum will unveil new discoveries about paintings by Jan Vermeer that it holds.

Taking advantage of the museum’s closure due to a health emergency in 2020-2021, researchers analyzed four paintings by Vermeer or attributed to him that belong to the museum collection. Through the use of advanced imaging techniques that virtually penetrate the layers of paint to see what lies underneath, scholars have been able to gain a greater understanding of the creative process, materials and changes that led the artist to create the works and will reveal the results at the very exhibition project. Indeed, the exhibition aims to offer a behind-the-scenes look at the study that National Gallery curators, conservators, and researchers have made of the museum’s four precious Vermeer paintings and attributed to him, as well as two 20th-century forgeries, to understand “what makes a Vermeer a Vermeer.”

There are about thirty-five known Vermeer paintings in the world. Among the goals of the research team was to assess whether Girl with a Flute (probably 1665/1675), whose authorship has long been debated, was really by Vermeer. The results of the studies will be announced before the exhibition opens.

Chemical imaging made it possible to observe the layers beneath the surface of Weighing Machine of Pearls (ca. 1664), and revealed rapid, spontaneous, sometimes textured brushstrokes in the lower layers, radically different from the precise finished composition, where individual brushstrokes are barely perceptible. This discovery challenges the common belief that the artist was a meticulously slow perfectionist. Girl with a Red Hat (1666/1667), on the other hand, revealed an unfinished portrait depicting a man in a wide-brimmed hat that was later changed to a female figure. It thus appears that the work is indeed by the Dutch artist.

Following Vermeer’s Secrets, curated by Marjorie E. Wieseman and Alexandra Libby, Vermeer’s paintings from the National Gallery in Washington will go to Amsterdam to be displayed in an exhibition at the Rijksmuseum, February 10 to June 4, 2023.

Image: Jan Vermeer, Girl in a Red Hat (c. 1666-1667; Wahington, National Gallery of Art)

Washington, D.C., Vermeer exhibition reveals new findings on artist's masterpieces and true authorship

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