FLORENCE, ITALY – Until May 25, 2014, 36 major works from the Dutch Golden Age of the seventeenth century are exhibited at the Palazzo Fava in Bologna, 35 minutes by train from Florence, Italy. The highest attention is paid to the masterpiece by Jan Vermeer Girl with a Pearl Earring. More than 3,000 people a day and more than 4,000 during the weekends visit the exhibit in Bologna.
Girl with a Pearl Earring gives a sense of something immediately recognizable, of a familiar face, of a supreme, enigmatic beauty. “Together with the Mona Lisa and The Scream, it is now one of the best-known and most loved paintings in the world – the exhibition curator Marco Goldin said -. With these works there is not even any need to mention the artist, because the title already acknowledges their names and ineffable fascination. Housed in one of the most refined galleries in the world, the Mauritshuis in The Hague, Vermeer’s painting attracts huge numbers of beauty lovers to the Dutch city. They all have only one idea in mind, go and meet the Girl with a Pearl Earring. Just like the Mona Lisa in Paris, or The Scream in Oslo. All three are symbols and emblems even before they are masterpieces – worlds of beauty and secret fascination. It’s as if the image comes out of the work and take the form of an emblem even before being seen as a painting. This only happens to what lives eternally”.
Five highly select venues, two in Japan and three in the United States, have hosted, are hosting or will host this remarkable exhibition. The content of the exhibition actually varies from venue to venue with the total works on show ranging from fifteen to thirty. Thus, after Tokyo and Kobe in 2012, the timeless face of Vermeer’s masterpiece will be seen in 2013 in San Francisco (Fine Arts Museum), Atlanta (High Museum of Art) and lastly another legendary gallery – almost a mirror image of the Mauritshuis – the Frick Collection, just a few blocks away from the Metropolitan on Fifth Avenue in New York. In all these locations, people have been flooding into the galleries to enjoy the unique, enthralling experience of seeing firsthand the Girl with a Pearl Earring.
Before going home to the Netherlands for good and never again moving from the Mauritshuis, the possibility arose that the painting could be seen in one last venue after New York. This time in Europe with the exhibition at the Palazzo Fava, Bologna from 8 February to 25 May 2014.
Exhibition Opening Hours: Monday – Thursday: 9.00 am -8.00 pm; Friday and Sunday: 9.00 am – 9.00 pm; Saturday: 09.00 am – 10.00 pm.
Booking and Information tel. 0422 429999. Full rate individual ticket with booking € 13,00.
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