My travel bag had barely been unpacked from my trip to the Netherlands last month, when it appeared that I might have to cross the Atlantic again, heading this time to the UK. With such a trip, the Boss felt my committment to The Project would come across that much more emphatically. Its all in the optics, he said, watching me clean my eye glasses.
I wasn't quite sure what to feel about all this. For me, the UK isn't the most convenient country to go Vermeer chasing in. Most of the works are in and around London, and my work has not and is unlikely to take me into the city London (outside of the touchdown at Heathrow and the train boarding at Kings Cross), and this time was going to be no different. Of the other works, one each lies in Dublin and Edinburgh, which I regrettably suspect may be the 2 cities I'll never ever have a reason to visit -- whether on business or as a tourist.
Perhaps this would be a simple work trip, after all. Airport, hotel, airport again, with little to show for it in a couple of weeks time. After the incredible visits to the Rijksmuseum and the Mauritshuis less than a month ago, this was a lump I was fully prepared to take.
Except, I had forgotten all about how paintings get loaned amongst museums, something especially true of Vermeers, due to their unusual scarcity. EssentialVermeer spoke of a Vermeer-centered exhibit at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. Four Vermeers in one stop: The Music Lesson normally resident at the Windsor Castle, The Lacemaker from the Louvre, A Lady Seated at a Virginal from the National Gallery London, and A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals.
If I could make my way up to Cambridge, this would be quite a coup, for more than one reason. You see, the last painting I mention is currently in private, anonymous hands, acquired in 2004 for £16.2 million, by bidding over the telephone*! One conjures up a whimsical tycoon, whose generosity might end any minute, or perhaps his hand forced by rash investments in Greek bonds, with the unfortunate outcome of the painting becoming inaccessible to the common eye. This is the very same painting displayed at the Chrysler for a very limited time in January 2011 -- and your writer had failed to make the 5 hour drive on that occassion.
* In one of those coincidences, I discover that Sotheby's Old Master Paintings Part 1 [L04031] also included Peter Paul Rubens' A Night Scene with an Old Lady ..., which sold for $ 4.5 million to Alfred Bader. This painting--also called Old Woman and a Boy with Candles--made a very powerful impression on me when I saw it at the Mauritshuis (who acquired it a year after the Sotheby's auction for $ 7.4 million). I was Vermeer chasing, but having met the count, I returned to enjoy not the Pearl Earring, but the Rubens. It was almost closing time and I had the room all to myself for many minutes, the silence around me emphasizing the quietude of this brilliant work. If I were Mr Bader, this is one painting I would never have given up.
I wasn't quite sure what to feel about all this. For me, the UK isn't the most convenient country to go Vermeer chasing in. Most of the works are in and around London, and my work has not and is unlikely to take me into the city London (outside of the touchdown at Heathrow and the train boarding at Kings Cross), and this time was going to be no different. Of the other works, one each lies in Dublin and Edinburgh, which I regrettably suspect may be the 2 cities I'll never ever have a reason to visit -- whether on business or as a tourist.
Perhaps this would be a simple work trip, after all. Airport, hotel, airport again, with little to show for it in a couple of weeks time. After the incredible visits to the Rijksmuseum and the Mauritshuis less than a month ago, this was a lump I was fully prepared to take.
Except, I had forgotten all about how paintings get loaned amongst museums, something especially true of Vermeers, due to their unusual scarcity. EssentialVermeer spoke of a Vermeer-centered exhibit at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. Four Vermeers in one stop: The Music Lesson normally resident at the Windsor Castle, The Lacemaker from the Louvre, A Lady Seated at a Virginal from the National Gallery London, and A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals.
If I could make my way up to Cambridge, this would be quite a coup, for more than one reason. You see, the last painting I mention is currently in private, anonymous hands, acquired in 2004 for £16.2 million, by bidding over the telephone*! One conjures up a whimsical tycoon, whose generosity might end any minute, or perhaps his hand forced by rash investments in Greek bonds, with the unfortunate outcome of the painting becoming inaccessible to the common eye. This is the very same painting displayed at the Chrysler for a very limited time in January 2011 -- and your writer had failed to make the 5 hour drive on that occassion.
* In one of those coincidences, I discover that Sotheby's Old Master Paintings Part 1 [L04031] also included Peter Paul Rubens' A Night Scene with an Old Lady ..., which sold for $ 4.5 million to Alfred Bader. This painting--also called Old Woman and a Boy with Candles--made a very powerful impression on me when I saw it at the Mauritshuis (who acquired it a year after the Sotheby's auction for $ 7.4 million). I was Vermeer chasing, but having met the count, I returned to enjoy not the Pearl Earring, but the Rubens. It was almost closing time and I had the room all to myself for many minutes, the silence around me emphasizing the quietude of this brilliant work. If I were Mr Bader, this is one painting I would never have given up.
