Private Air New York Magazine
Issue link: https://privateair.uberflip.com/i/1436865
www.privateairny.com Private Air | Winter 2021/2022 71 ere are other works to explore these two artists' connection within this special golden sliver of art history. e National Gallery of Art exhibit in 2017 Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry curated by Arthur Wheelock, was a special opportunity to do so. Upon the news of the exhibit, I immediately bolted to Washington and gasped at the 70 works of artists like Van Mieres, Ter Borch, Metsu, Steen and Dou that were spectacularly curated and all part of this milieu. But nothing was as thrilling as the final room of the exhibit where I stood open mouthed in front of the 2 pairs of Vermeers and De Hoochs that were brought together. e Love Letter, Woman Feeding the Parrot, and the two Women with Balances were hung together for the first time and as concluding testament to their unique connection and influence in Dutch genre painting. e Balance pictures that were set next to each on the final wall of the exhibit were transfixing. e incredible dialogue between these two pictures embodied the mystery and connection between these two great artists. I stood for hours and looked and looked, and then closed my eyes, trying to go back to the mid 1660s and imagine where each of these canvases were and what these two artists were thinking when they painted them. Perhaps they were last seen side by side in Delft or Amsterdam? ere was a great secret between them to uncover. But no force of will or desire I had could break thru these doorkijkjes into the past. ese pictures were now trapped in our time. I left the show satisfied but defeated. e mystery of Vermeer and De Hooch remains alive and well, still leaving us much to uncode within these enigmatic rectangles. Allen Hirsch is a painter, writer and entrepreneur. He collects 17th Century Dutch art and is currently working on an art historical memoir of Pieter de Hooch. National Gallery of Ireland Private Collection Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting, National Gallery of Art, Washington Photo Courtesy of the Author ART