The High Museum of Art in collaboration with the Mauritshuis, The Hague, will present a major exhibition of Dutch masterworks in 2013, including Johannes Vermeer’s iconic “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” which has not been on view in the U.S. for more than 15 years and has never been seen in the Southeast.

Drawn from the Mauritshuis’s collection, “Girl with a Pearl Earring: Dutch Paintings from the Mauritshuis” will highlight the artistic genius of Dutch Golden Age painters, including Vermeer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Frans Hals and Jan Steen, through the presentation of 35 exceptional paintings.

“For a selection of works from this renowned collection to be shown in the Southeast is a rare and extraordinary opportunity,” said Michael E. Shapiro, Nancy and Holcombe T. Green, Jr., director of the High. “Paintings of this caliber are underrepresented in this part of the country and this exhibition will create an opportunity for our community to study and admire these works of art that rarely travel outside of Europe.”

“We are delighted to have three excellent museums as partners for our U.S. tour,” said Emilie Gordenker, director of the Mauritshuis. “This collaboration allows us to present our collection on both the West and East Coasts of the United States, in large as well as more intimate venues.”

“Girl with a Pearl Earring: Dutch Paintings from the Mauritshuis” showcases such masters as Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Frans Hals, Jan Steen, Jacob and Salomon van Ruysdael, Paulus Potter, Meindert Hobbema and Jan van Goyen. Through landscapes and portraits, the exhibition will explore the idea that Dutch artists more readily embraced genre paintings of secular subjects than their southern European contemporaries and focused on capturing commonplace scenes of daily life. Dutch artists not only recorded representations of the domestic interior, still lifes and revelrous crowds, but often imbued these scenes with moral undertones and humorous, sarcastic wit.

National pride and wonder in the details of the physical world inspired the artistic achievements of the Dutch Golden Age.  At a time when technical inventions such as the telescope and the microscope were opening the natural world to investigation, artists looked more closely than ever at the world around them.  Centuries later their work still fills viewers with wonder.

PHOTOS:

Photo of postcard of Johannes Vermeer’s
“Girl with a Pearl Earring,” Oil on canvas ca.1665

Photo of postcard of Abraham van Beyeren’s “Flower Still Life.” ca. 1668-1670 Oil on Canvas

Photo of postcard of Rachel Ruysch’s “Vase with flowers.” ca. 1700. Oil on Canvas

Photo of postcard of Rembrandt’s “Portrait of Rembrandt” ca. 1629 Oil on Panel

Photo of postcard of Jan Steen’s “As the Old Sing, So Twitter the Young.” ca. 1668-1670 Oil on Canvas

POSSE PHOTOS:

Museum shot with Exhibition image

Isabel, Lucy & Layla

Lucy, Layla, Isabel & Brantly

Exhibition info

Layla, Lucy & Isabel

Brantly, Isabel, Layla & Lucy in front of the Mauritshuis

Brantly, Isabel, Layla & Lucy in front of the Mauritshuis

Brantly, Isabel, Layla & Lucy in front of the Mauritshuis

The Mauritshuis