Making the Difference: Vermeer and Dutch Art

Held at the Ueno Royal Museum in Tokyo from 5 October 2018 to 3 February 2019, Making the Difference: Vermeer and Dutch Art was the largest gathering of Vermeer's work ever staged in Japan. Nine of the painter's roughly thirty-five surviving pictures travelled to Ueno, a count the organisers turned into the show's slogan, 'VERMEER 9/35', printed across the museum's signboards. The exhibition was organised by the Sankei Shimbun, Fuji Television, Hakuhodo DY Media Partners, and the Ueno Royal Museum, under the general supervision of Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., the former curator of Dutch painting at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

The display ran in six sections. The first five set Vermeer among about forty of his contemporaries, grouped by subject rather than by artist, moving from religious and mythological pictures through portraits and character studies to scenes of everyday life and, finally, cityscapes and church interiors. Painters on the walls included Emanuel de Witte, Gerrit Dou, Judith Leyster, Gabriel Metsu, Pieter de Hooch, and Jan Steen, with loans drawn from museums across Europe and the United States. The sixth and final section, a darkened room with deep-blue and purple walls, brought the Vermeers together on their own.

The nine Vermeers spanned the length of his career. From the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin came Woman with a Pearl Necklace and The Glass of Wine; Dresden lent The Procuress, Amsterdam The Milkmaid, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington both Girl with a Red Hat and A Lady Writing. The Metropolitan Museum sent Woman with a Lute, the National Gallery of Ireland Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid, and the National Galleries of Scotland the early Christ in the House of Martha and Mary.

Several of the loans were shown in Japan for the first time, among them Berlin's Glass of Wine and Dresden's Procuress. The nine were also never all on the wall at once. Girl with the Red Hat hung only for the opening window, from 5 October to 20 December 2018, before returning to Washington, and The Procuress arrived only for the final stretch, from 9 January to 3 February 2019. Between those dates the room held eight Vermeers at most. Berlin's pair was taken off view at the Gemäldegalerie in mid-September 2018 and reinstalled there the following February.

Anticipating heavy crowds, the museum adopted a date-and-time-specified admission system, still uncommon for Japanese exhibitions, so visitors booked a slot rather than queueing at the door. Everyone received a free audio guide and a free illustrated booklet carrying commentary on all forty-nine works. The guide was voiced by the actress Satomi Ishihara, who also served as the show's navigator and appeared at the press conference in a dress the colour of Vermeer's ultramarine.

After Tokyo the exhibition travelled to the Osaka City Museum of Fine Arts, where a reduced selection of six Vermeers was shown from 16 February to 12 May 2019. The Love Letter joined the checklist only in Osaka, while the Berlin and Dresden canvases, the Milkmaid, and Girl with the Red Hat stayed in Tokyo.