Vermeer

The Rijksmuseum brought together twenty-eight of Vermeer's roughly thirty-seven known paintings in the largest Vermeer retrospective ever staged. Curated by Pieter Roelofs and Gregor J.M. Weber, with exhibition design by Jean-Michel Wilmotte and graphic design by Irma Boom. Loans came from more than twenty museums across Europe and North America, including all three Frick Vermeers, the Mauritshuis trio, Vienna's Art of Painting, and — re-upgraded for the occasion — the NGA's Girl with a Flute. The Concert (stolen from the Gardner Museum in 1990) is unavailable to any exhibition; the two National Gallery, London virginals, the Met's Allegory of the Catholic Faith, and the NGI Dublin Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid did not travel. Exactly 650,000 visitors attended over 115 days; the show sold out roughly a month after opening.