18
Jan/14

VERMEER, REMBRANDT, AND HALS: MASTERPIECES OF DUTCH PAINTING FROM THE MAURITSHUIS

18
Jan/14
Johannes Vermeer, “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” oil on canvas, ca. 1665 (Mauritshuis, The Hague)

Johannes Vermeer, “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” oil on canvas, ca. 1665 (Mauritshuis, The Hague)

The Frick Collection
1 East 70th St. at Fifth Ave.
Through January 19, $20
212-288-0700
www.frick.org

Numerous blockbuster shows in the past year have created massive crowds waiting hours to get into museums and galleries. Among the most popular have been “Yayoi Kusama” at David Zwirner, “Jean-Michel Basquiat” at Gagosian, “Rain Room” at MoMA, and Christian Marclay’s The Clock at MoMA and other locations. The current hottest art spot in New York is the Frick, which cautions on its website, “Please expect to wait in line outside since we are experiencing unprecedented crowds.” (The blocks-long line starts at the Seventieth St. entrance and can wrap around Fifth Ave. onto Seventy-First.) Why are people waiting hours outside in a freezing-cold January to get in? For a chance to get up close and personal with one of the world’s most famous, and most beautiful, works of art.

The centerpiece of “Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals: Masterpieces of Dutch Painting from the Mauritshuis” is Johannes Vermeer’s mid-seventeenth-century painting “Girl with a Pearl Earring.” Considered the Dutch Mona Lisa, the glorious tronie resides by itself in the Oval Room, where it can be seen by only small groups of visitors at a time. Restored in 1994, it’s a dazzling tour de force by Vermeer, who sets the fictional subject’s penetrating eyes, soft red lips, shadowy cheeks, blue and yellow turban, and glittering pearl earring against a black background, making the details all the more mesmerizing. The painting is on loan from the Mauritshuis Royal Picture Gallery in The Hague, which is undergoing a major expansion and renovation; among the other fourteen works on view at the Frick are Gerard ter Borch’s “Woman Writing a Letter,” Nicholas Maes’s “Old Lacemaker,” Jan Steen’s “As the Old Sing, So Pipe the Young,” Jacob van Ruisdael’s “View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds,” and four canvases by Rembrandt, including “Susanna” and “Simeon’s Song of Praise,” along with “The Goldfinch,” Carel Fabritius’s lovely little painting that plays a key role in Donna Tartt’s current bestselling novel of the same name. As a bonus, the Frick has also brought together three Vermeers from its permanent collection, “Officer and Laughing Girl,” “Girl Interrupted at Her Music,” and “Mistress and Maid,” which can be seen side-by-side-by-side in the East Gallery. Meanwhile, in the Multimedia Room, Rob and Nick Carter re-create every aspect of Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder’s “Vase with Flowers in a Window” in the animated digital film Transforming Still Life Painting. Although online timed tickets for “Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals” are sold out, a limited number of same-day and advance tickets are available at the admissions desk. And be prepared; there’s even a line to get into the special gift shop.