From the museum website, 23 March 2009
The Dutch town of Delft emerged as an important artistic centre rather suddenly in the late 1640s. Above all, the works of Johannes Vermeer and Pieter de Hooch established Delft’s fame, yet during that period the city also sustained a vibrant artistic community that involved a wide variety of very accomplished painters as well as tapestry-makers, silversmiths and faiencers. To the present day Delft is famous for its blue and white porcelain, so-called Delftware.
This major international exhibition presented the work of Delft’s two most celebrated artists, Vermeer and De Hooch, within the broader context of the local artistic environment. It also investigated the earlier developments that paved the way for their important innovations.
Here in London the exhibition brought together 13 paintings by Vermeer and 11 by De Hooch. They were shown with almost 50 works by some of Delft’s most accomplished painters, such as Gerard Houckgeest’s luminous church interiors, the elegant portraits of Michiel van Mierevelt, Paulus Potter’s atmospheric landscapes, Leonaert Bramer’s dramatic interpretations of biblical stories and the magnificent flower still lifes by Balthasar van der Ast.
Support
Ernst and Young
Publications
Vermeer and the Delft school
Walter Liedtke, with Michiel Plomp and Axel Rüger and
contributions by Reinier Baarsen and others
Catalogue of an exhibition held in 2001 in London (National Gallery) and New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
XIII + 626 pp., 31 cm.
New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art) and New Haven (Yale University Press) 2001
ISBN 0-300-08848-5 (hardbound)
ISBN 0-87099-973-7 (hardbound)
ISBN 0-87099-974-5 (paperbound)
Vermeer and painting in Delft
Axel Rüger
Museum book accompanying exhibition held in 2001 in London (National Gallery) and New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
72 pp., 27 cm.
London (National Gallery Company) 2001
ISBN 1-85709-910-9