After almost 30 years, she’s back in town, that gal with the turban, the Christmas-bulb gem, and the over-the-shoulder, did-you-say-something glance. Johannes Vermeer’s “Girl With a Pearl Earring” last visited New York in 1984, and much has happened since to burnish her allure.
In the 1990s, art conservators cleaned her up and smoothed out cracks that had come to mar her flawless skin, leaving her looking fresh-minted. More important, after being the subject of a hot novel, a tony film and, most recently, a stage play, she’s now a media sensation, one of the most famous faces in Western art. NYTimes
So she’s certain to pull a crowd when she goes on view, starting on Tuesday, at the Frick Collection as part of a traveling loan show, “Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals: Masterpieces of Dutch Painting From the Mauritshuis.” Anticipating a crush, the Frick has placed her alone in its Oval Room. But as the exhibition title implies, she comes from her home in The Hague with celebrity company, 14 other fabulous pictures, all installed in an adjoining gallery. Taken together, they are a gold-standard remnant of the Dutch Golden Age.
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