The National Gallery, London
26 June - 8 September 2013
cinema tour, 3 November 2013
For the first time the National Gallery’s two paintings by Jan Vermeer, A Young Woman standing at a Virginal and A Young Woman seated at a Virginal are brought together with Vermeer’s Guitar Player, which is currently on exceptional loan from the Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood House.
Music was one of the most popular themes in Dutch painting, and carried many diverse associations. In portraits, a musical instrument or songbook might suggest the education or social position of the sitter; in scenes of everyday life, it might act as a metaphor for harmony, or a symbol of transience.
The exhibition displays 17th-century virginals, guitars and lutes alongside the paintings to offer unique insights into the painters’ choice of instruments, and the difference between the real instruments and the way in which the painters chose to represent them. [National Gallery]
Interviewed experts can be tiresome, but mainly the film focusses on the pictures themselves in this remarkable exhibition.
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