Masterpieces from the Mauritshuis to travel in 2013 to the United States

The Hague, January 27, 2012 – Masterpieces from the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis will be exhibited at three museums in the United States from January 2013 to January 2014. The Mauritshuis has agreed to send more than thirty works to the de Young/Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta; the tour will finish with a smaller selection at The Frick Collection in New York. Among the paintings going on tour are the famous Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer and The Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius, neither of which will have been seen by American audiences in ten years. Furthermore, this is the first occasion since the mid-1980s that a substantial group of works from the Mauritshuis has come to the United States. The decision to organize a major international travelling exhibition of a select group of paintings from the museum’s rich collection was prompted by the large-scale renovations to its premises, which will be finished in 2014.

Emilie Gordenker, Director of the Mauritshuis, comments, "We are delighted to have three excellent museums as partners for our U.S. tour. This agreement allows us to present our collection on both the West and East coasts of the United States, in large as well as more intimate venues."

About the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis

Housed in a magnificent seventeenth-century city palace, the museum is celebrated for its masterpieces from the Dutch and Flemish Golden Age, including paintings by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Steen, Hals, and Rubens. The works on permanent display provide a magnificent panorama of Dutch and Flemish art of the 15th to 17th centuries; from Flemish primitives to sunlit landscapes, from biblical characters to meticulous still lifes, and from calm interiors to humorous genre scenes. The core holdings of the Mauritshuis were acquired by Stadholder William V, Prince of Orange-Nassau (1748–1806), whose son, King William I (1772–1843), presented them to the Dutch nation in 1816. Consisting of nearly 300 paintings in 1822, the holdings of the Mauritshuis have grown to approximately 800 such works today.

The Mauritshuis on tour

The first venue in the U.S. tour is the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Both the de Young and the second venue, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, will display 35 works by Dutch masters. The final venue on the tour, New York’s Frick Collection, has a more intimate character, and will exhibit a selection of ten paintings. Amongst the works travelling to the United States are masterpieces by Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Jan Steen and Jacob van Ruisdael. The painting Vase of Flowers by Rachel Ruysch, one of the few female painters of the Dutch Golden Age, is being restored especially for the American tour.

Before travelling to the United States, the majority of the works will go to Japan, where they will be exhibited first at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum (July until mid-September 2012) and then at the Kobe City Museum in the fall and early winter of 2012/2013. The travelling exhibitions to Japan and the United States offer the Mauritshuis the opportunity to bring its impressive collection of Dutch masters to the attention of a large, international public.

Masterpieces from the Mauritshuis at the Gemeentemuseum The Hague

Other works from the Mauritshuis’s permanent collection will remain accessible in the Netherlands at its temporary accommodation, the Gemeentemuseum The Hague. More than 110 major works will be on display in a separate wing of the Gemeentemuseum starting April 28. 2012, an exhibition titled Masterpieces from the Mauritshuis - at the Gemeentemuseum The Hague. These paintings include such highlights as Vermeer’s View of Delft, The Bull by Potter and The Anatomy Lesson by Rembrandt. Popular works such as the Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Goldfinch will be on display at the Gemeentemuseum from until May 28, 2012, before they go on tour to Japan and the United States.

U.S. TOUR VENUE INFORMATION:
de Young, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
DATES: January 26, 2013, through June 2, 2013
TITLE: Girl with a Pearl Earring: Dutch Paintings from the Mauritshuis (35 works)

High Museum of Art, Atlanta
DATES: June 22, 2013, through September 29, 2013
TITLE: Girl with a Pearl Earring: Dutch Paintings from the Mauritshuis (35 works)

The Frick Collection, New York
DATES: October 22, 2013, through January 12, 2014
TITLE: Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals: Masterpieces of Dutch Painting from the
Mauritshuis (10 works)