Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Old Masters Organised by the Dutch Benevolent Society in Brussels

This charity exhibition was organised by the Société néerlandaise de bienfaisance (Dutch Benevolent Society) in Brussels and held at the Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts in 1873 and 1874. Its purpose was philanthropic rather than scholarly, bringing together loans of old master paintings and drawings to raise funds for the Dutch benevolent community in Brussels.

The show included two works by Vermeer: Woman with a Pearl Necklace and A Lady Writing (catalogue no. 26). Both were at the time in the collection of the Aachen industrialist Barthold Suermondt, who had acquired the Woman with a Pearl Necklace at the Thoré-Bürger sale in Brussels in April 1868. In 1874, Suermondt’s collection was acquired en bloc by the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, where the painting has remained ever since.