In the Time of The Lacemaker

Louvre-Lens created this free exhibition to accompany the long-term loan of Vermeer’s The Lacemaker (c. 1669-70), one of only two Vermeer paintings in French public collections. While the small canvas occupied the Galerie du temps, the adjacent Glass Pavilion housed a contextual display running from 29 November 2023 to 27 May 2024 that placed the painting within Vermeer’s Delft and within the wider 17th-century world the lacemaker herself could not see. The curatorial premise was a deliberate contrast: the young woman’s world is closed, quiet, and intimate, yet the thread in her hands connects her to global silk and linen trade routes, colonial commerce, and an economy that reached far beyond her cushion and bobbins.

The exhibition drew on regional heritage from the Hauts-de-France, a region with its own deep lacemaking tradition centred on Calais and Caudry. The Cité de la dentelle et de la mode de Calais lent an authentic period lacemaking loom and samples of 17th-century lace that allowed visitors to study the craft at close range. Dutch paintings contemporary with Vermeer, borrowed from the Musée Sandelin in Saint-Omer, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Arras, and the Musée de la Chartreuse in Douai, widened the visual frame to show women in domestic interiors, lace as dress ornament, and the still-life tradition in which fine textiles carried social meaning.

A counterpoint section brought four contemporary artists into dialogue with the painting. Raphaël Barontini, Safâa Erruas, Hessie, and Annette Messager each engaged with lace, thread, or textile in ways that reframed Vermeer’s subject through a present-day lens, questioning the invisibility of women’s labour and the persistence of its imagery. The Louvre-Lens also offered practical programming around the loan: bobbin lace workshops run by the Relais de la Dentelle, camera obscura demonstrations exploring Vermeer’s possible optical methods, and a digital installation, La Dentellière à la loupe, that zoomed into the hands, thread, and face in extreme close-up.