Displaying items by tag: small treasures

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has lent one of its great treasures—Johannes Vermeer's Woman in Blue Reading a Letter (c. 1663)—to the National Gallery of Art in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the landmark Johannes Vermeer exhibition, which opened here in November 1995 before traveling to the Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis, The Hague, in March 1996.

This luminous masterpiece, recently restored at the Rijksmuseum, will be displayed through December 1, 2016, in the Dutch and Flemish Cabinet Galleries. It will hang with Vermeer paintings from the Gallery's own collection, including Woman Holding a Balance (c. 1664) and Girl with a Red Hat (c. 1665/1666)—the latter newly returned after being featured in Small Treasures, an exhibition shown in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Birmingham, Alabama—as well as Girl with a Flute (1665–1675), attributed to Vermeer.

The Birmingham Museum of Art opened a new exhibit Saturday that features works of well-known Dutch and Flemish masters. The exhibition, called "Small Treasures," includes paintings by Rembrandt, Vermeer and their contemporaries. These artists are often known for large canvases, but these paintings are small.

"We have two paintings by Rembrandt and two paintings by Vermeer," said Robert Schindler, the museum's curator of European art. "In terms of quality and the level of artistic skill that is on display here, [it] is just extraordinary. It does not get any better than this."