Vermeer exhibit to unite Milkmaid, Girl with a Pearl Earring

AMSTERDAM — The Amsterdam Rijksmuseum will unite two iconic paintings from Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer early next year — The Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Milkmaid. In Thursday’s announcement of the Feb. 10-June 4 exhibit, the musuem said it will be the first time in over a quarter-century that the paintings will be united in the same building, dating back to a 1996 show at The Hague’s Mauritshuis, home to the Girl with a Pearl Earring. “A search for simplicity is very difficult to arrive at,” Dibbits said, adding it is what ”we now still admire so much today.” With his domestic scenes of pouring milk, people talking and an almost nonchalant portrait of his maid, Vermeer knows how to create a sense of serenity that especially offers a balm in today’s turbulent times over 350 years later. On the one hand, you step into the 17th century,” he said, “On the other hand, because this depicts everyday life, they’re incredibly modern.” New York’s Frick Collection will lend its three Vermeers which will be shown together outside of New York over a century after the museum acquired them.