JOHANNES VERMEER and the Dutch Masters of the Golden Age from the collection of the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

Introduction

The centerpiece painting of this exhibition is the “Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window” by the great 17th-century Dutch painter, Johannes Vermeer.

This is an early masterpiece with which Vermeer is known to have established his definitive painting style, with the expression of light coming through a window and the portrayal of a woman reading a letter inside a room.

In 1979, X-ray images taken disclosed a painting-within-a-painting, showing a Cupid on the background wall which had been varnished over. For many years, it was long thought that Vermeer himself had painted out the Cupid. However, research in 2017 revealed that it had been done by another hand, and a restoration went ahead to remove the over layer on the painting-within-a-painting. In May 2019, a work in the process of restoration, in which the painting of Cupid partially appears was unveiled at a press conference.

In addition to the materials featuring the above process, this exhibition will display the initial state of the “Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window” painting, in which the image of Cupid is fully revealed after the large-scale restoration. This will be the second display of the restored work, since its unveiling at “Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden”, and first time in the world that the painting will be exhibited since it was first unveiled after the restoration.

Including works by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Gabriel Metsu and Jacob van Ruisdael of the collection of “Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden”, the exhibition will also feature around 70 masterpieces from the 17th century Dutch Golden Age paintings.

General Outline

■Period:
Thursday, February 10th - Sunday, April 3rd (2022)

■Venue:
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum (Exhibition Rooms)