Sophie goes to Amsterdam!

Sophie, our registrar and exhibition assistant just took 5 days in sunny Amsterdam to visit the blockbuster Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum! Here is a little round up of her star shows of the week.

The first gallery stop was in The Hague – at the very small but outstanding Mauritshuis. The Gallery holds a collection of Dutch and Flemish 17th Century paintings, including The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp by Rembrandt, and Carel Fabritius’s Goldfinch. Among these icons of Dutch Golden Age painting we see Van Dyck, Frans Hals and Holbein portraits, wintery scenes by Avercamp, van Goyen and Jan Steen, and beautiful flower still lifes. Usually the last room is home to Vermeer’s View of Delft – particularly famous for being his only cityscape. On this visit the painting was absent – instead on display in the Rijksmuseum, but it was wonderful to see The Girl With a Pearl Earring which had been returned to the gallery early, deemed too important to the collection and its visitors to stay out the whole exhibition run.

The Kunstmuseum in The Hague was a first time visit – and thoroughly enjoyed! The huge art deco building is home to one of Europe’s biggest modern art collections – which includes the largest collections of Mondrians in the world – a highlight being his last work, Victory Boogie-Woogie. On this visit the gallery was hosting exhibitions on Flemish Expressionism, Delftware and MC Escher.

Delftware WonderWare was a celebration of Dutch pottery – exploring the comparisons between Dutch and Chinese workmanship as a result of the Dutch East India Company’s trading links during the Dutch Golden Age. Delftware factories produced work at a much lower cost than porcelain exports from China – and so it had an enormous impact on Dutch interiors. The exhibition features contemporary work proving the endurance of this influence.

Though we’re probably most used to seeing MC Esher’s work in maths classrooms, The National Galleries of Scotland held a show in 2015 encouraging us to take his work seriously, as a master printmaker. This exhibition went 100 steps further, showing his famous optical illusions, impossible architecture, distortions and reflections in their final forms and in process: for example, a perfect architectural drawing before being distorting with a fish eye, and the woodblocks he carved to make them. All of the rooms were filled with incredible installations by Gijs Van Vaerenbergh inspired by the most iconic Escher images.

I also spied a little on the staff installing new exhibitions – at the end of May there will be a series of rooms showcasing the best in Dutch Ceramics, Glass and particularly intriguingly, 3D printed porcelain sculptures….

Keep an eye on their exhibition page for more information!

The Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum has been like the Glastonbury of art – with tickets selling out, crashing the website and being rereleased all to get in a long queue and to stand in a crowd. It was busy and bustling and great – and an opportunity to see paintings that there’s a good chance I’ll never get to see again. To see 28 of the known 37 paintings in one place was pretty amazing – each with a lot of room around it, slowing the visitors down and giving everyone a chance to take a look and puzzle over them. The Washington Post said there will never be another Vermeer show as great as this one – it couldn’t have been better organised, hung or lit and it was certainly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit. Please read The Guardian and The Art Newspaper reviews for a deep dive into the paintings themselves, or visit without having to get on an easyjet flight by going to The Cameo of Exhibition on Screen’s 90 minute tour of the exhibition! Book here.