Vermeers of Germany at Long Last!

Tea in The Folly with fresh raspberry jam

 I had a nice little streak going there, but somehow life intervened (see first five photos as well as the final image) and it's been more than a month since the last Germany-trip report. I say "life intervened" like there was something big, but there wasn't. I find that I cannot account for my time, which might maybe concern one a little, if one were the sort to be concerned. Some of the time has gone to reading; I am four squares shy of blacking out my SPL book bingo card for summer 2026. As it happens, I've read two Persephone books in the last 24 hours, though only one of those worked to fill a square (The Young Pretenders, by Edith Henrietta Fowler). I first re-read Cheerful Weather for the Wedding (Julia Strachey), but it quickly became clear that that frenetic little story was anything but "soothing."  I noticed how many online reviews there were for both of these books, somewhat obscure though they are, which led to me wondering how it is that people have time to write about the books they read and then to me thinking that maybe I could just grab a few hours here and post about Vermeer. Which is what the title above implies this post will cover.

Belle & Sebastian at the Neptune in June

 (Largely unrelated side-note: Many years ago I turned with great interest to a short piece Scott had titled "Every Girl I've Ever Kissed" and was disappointed to find it was actually a short history of the violin, with a great deal on the topic of "historically-informed performance (or HIP)". Scott has never been the sort to heed Chicago so he hyphenated there.)

Fish Sticks Win!

 Vermeer though! As I've written earlier here and told every person I know, we opted for Dresden because the museum there houses two Vermeers I had not seen before. It also seemed fairly close to Braunschweig which also owns a Vermeer. Thus far, only one person to whom I've mentioned this has had the reaction I did: "Whyever does someplace like Braunschweig have a Vermeer?" According to at least one source, it's because the museum there is so damned old; it's been amassing paintings for pushing three centuries now. But is that really so old as European museums go? One doubts.

Mexico fan came prepared to watch a World Cup game at the Admiral Pub

 My photos, alas, are not so great.  That's partly due to my "real camera" dying midway through the trip, but probably it's more that I'm just not always the best photographer and, really the lighting in many museums doesn't lend itself to great photography. But they work as ID shots, anyway.

License renewal: check!

 Frankfurt's Vermeer is an old favorite, "The Geographer." I'd visit this one pretty regularly for over a decade when I was in town for the book fair and I do love it.

"The Geographer" at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt

 The thing about travel is that sometimes you stumble across stuff you had no idea existed. We were looking for something else entirely (Durers, maybe?) at the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum when we instead found the Lothar Osterburg special exhibit. Mr Osterburg's thing is miniatures, of a sort, many of which you view through sort of peepholes. And it seems he was not unfamiliar with Mr Vermeer's props:

Sadly, I didn't get the title of this Lothar Osterburg piece.

But I'm jumping ahead. We landed in Frankfurt and wasted little time in getting to the Städel, and then ate, slept, discovered Brötchen, and boarded a train to get us to Dresden some sixish hours later. We got to the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister museum the next morning. There, I was in a frenzy (as usual) until we tracked down the first of their two Vermeers, and my! she was yar:

"Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window" in Dresden

"Girl with a Letter" has been a favorite since I used it on the cover of a collection of songs about letters (very limited print run, that was, but possibly the most fun I ever had making a compilation CD). But seeing it in person I noticed, for what felt like the first time, that the girl is reflected in the glass of the window which made it all the more fabulous. The informational placard talked up how the painting of Cupid behind her had been painted over for some centuries, and only recently discovered (and uncovered). So that was cool, too.

 Of course, knowing there was a second Vermeer hidden somewhere in the building meant I had to tear myself away from the Girl. We went so far as to ask one of the docents for directions. Embarrassingly, it turned out to be on the opposite side of the wall though, in our defense, that meant it was a different room entirely. There I encountered the inconceivable, a Vermeer for which I did not care:

"The Procuress" at the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister

I've been asked several times why I don't like this one which was painted within a year or two of "Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window." I've said it's the lack of a window and thus the lack of the shadowy light, but I think it's also how the people crowd the frame and the guy on the right [suggested by some as a possible self-portrait of Mr Vermeer himself] seems to be looking knowingly at the viewer. The subject matter is a bit icky which adds to the discomfort, I suppose. It's got a nice tapestry, I'll give it that.
So I was a bit shaken, maybe, after that experience, and it was with a little trepidation that we packed up and headed for Braunschweig some days later. As the "Notes from Camelid" blogger noted in his post about the museum (linked above), the museum there felt almost empty. I was relieved to find Vermeer back to his more usual form here though, again, the backstory might be a little less than savory.

"Girl with a Glass of  Wine" at the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum

This one has you wondering about the bored friend in the background; is he the suitor's / seducer's friend or the girl's brother or both? Is the young woman really falling for the smarmy guy? And why does her knowingish look out the frame not offend me the way the guy in "The Procuress" does? Is it just that she's a decent distance away and has that window nearby?

Speaking of that window, it gets a lot of work from both Vermeer and Osterburg:

Another Lothar Osterburg peep shot

I regret now that we didn't spend a little more time exploring Braunschwieg since it's unlikely we'll return, but, well, we didn't. We caught a tram back to the train station, collected the luggage we'd stored in a locker there, and scurried to catch the train to Berlin. Which was running slightly behind schedule, allowing me to snap a fine photo of Scott in travel mode:

That's all our luggage for nearly two weeks. I think that's pretty impressive.

"Girl with a Glass of Wine" was the last of the new-to-me Vermeers, but that didn't mean we didn't visit those at Berlin's Gemäldergalerie, one of which felt very familiar somehow.

Now that the friend is gone, the painting is called simply "A Glass of Wine."

One might almost feel like Mr Vermeer sold the same painting twice over, doing a bit of ahead-of-its-time copy-and-paste to create this new painting. Or maybe it was a 17th century version of a "Spot the Differences" puzzle.  

 I tried to pose like the figure in the final Vermeer of the trip, but I really didn't like the way that photo came out so you get a fairly standard shot of "Woman with a Pearl Necklace."

"I'm so glad I got the matching earrings back from that woman in Delft."

 One great regret of the trip is that I didn't buy the Vermeer book that was dirt cheap at the Braunschweig museum. It was a bit big and bulky, though very lightweight, and I thought I wouldn't have room in my suitcase for it. Now I've discovered that my wee Prestel Vermeer isn't complete so I must kick myself twice over. 

 Well, at least there is Brötchen.

Fresh from the oven; made using this recipe