Vermeer’s Women: Secrets and Silence has achieved record-breaking attendance figures at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, with over 130,000 visitors to the Museum since the exhibition opened in October. Due to the high demand, from the 3rd of January the Museum is introducing later opening hours to enable local audiences and visitors from London and abroad to see the show.
The exhibition focuses on the 17th-century Dutch master Johannes Vermeer and explores the mysterious appeal of the women in his paintings, contrasting four of his works with 28 paintings by other master painters of the Dutch Golden Age.
Featuring Vermeer’s The Lacemaker from the Musée du Louvre on view in the UK for the first time, the exhibition has broken all records of visitor attendance averaging between 9,000 and 12,000 visitors each week and achieving exceptional national and international press acclaim with coverage from London to New York and as far as Japan.
Given this high demand, the Museum will extend its temporary exhibition opening hours by an extra two hours to 7pm on Tuesday to Fridays and an extra hour to 6pm on Saturdays and Sundays between 3 and 15 January.
During the extended opening hours the Courtyard entrance of the Museum will be open to allow visitors into its temporary exhibition space and the 20th century Galleries, where visitors can see Vermeer’s Women and another major exhibition Splendour & Power: Imperial Treasures from Vienna (closes 15 January).
The Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Dr Timothy Potts commented: “We are delighted that Vermeer’s Women has been such an unprecedented success; this is the first time any exhibition at the Fitzwilliam has achieved over 100,000 visitors and there are still some weeks to go. The critical and popular acclaim for Vermeer has been universal, and the catalogue too has received rave reviews. The increased opening hours will make it easier for people who work to visit, and for those who have already seen it once to do so again at a quieter time of day when there will be more space to view the works.”
About the exhibition
Women are one of the key subjects in Vermeer’s works: whether gazing out wistfully at the viewer, or focusing on an activity with an almost eerie calm, they possess a powerful allure. This exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum is the first to focus on Vermeer’s domestic interiors and, by examining them in the context of paintings by other Dutch Golden Age masters, explores the enigma of these women who seem crystallised in a moment in time.
The vivid realism of these paintings provides a remarkable window into the private world of women in the 17th-century Dutch Republic. These scenes of the home seem hauntingly familiar even today: from the meditative calm of needlework, playing music, reading or simply daydreaming to such mundane domestic activities as cooking, shopping, washing and dressing, minding children, gossiping and eavesdropping. Often framed with a painted window or doorway, the viewer has the impression of having stumbled upon a private moment hidden behind closed doors.
Revealing the Dutch Golden Age ideals of the home, feminine beauty and domesticity, the exhibition also explores how artists subtly altered and augmented reality to enhance the magnetic appeal and symbolic import of these painted worlds.
At the heart of this stunning exhibition is Vermeer’s extraordinary painting The Lacemaker (c.1669-70), one of the Musée du Louvre’s most treasured works, rarely seen outside Paris and on loan to the UK for the first time.
Complementing this painting are three further works representing the pinnacle of Vermeer’s mature career: A lady at the virginals with a gentleman ‘The Music Lesson’ (c.1662-5) on loan from The Royal Collection; A Young Woman Seated at a Virginal (c.1670) from the National Gallery, London; and Young Woman Seated at a Virginal (private collection, New York). Joining these are 28 masterpieces of genre painting from such artists as Cornelis de Bisschop, Gerard ter Borch, Esaias Boursse, Quiringh van Brekelenkam, Gerrit Dou, Pieter de Hooch, Samuel van Hoogstraten, Nicolaes Maes, Cornelis de Man, Eglon van der Neer, Jacob van Ochtervelt, Godfried Schalcken, Jan Steen and Jacobus Vrel.
Vermeer’s Women: Secrets and Silence features works from museums and collections around the world, including the National Gallery, London; The Royal Collection; the Musée du Louvre; the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; the Mauritshuis, The Hague; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.