Last Call - "The Girl With A Pearl Earring" in De Young Museum, San Francisco

The twin exhibitions - "The Girl with a Pearl Earring - Dutch Paintings from the Mauritshuis" and "The Rembrandt's Century" in De Young Museum, San Francisco are to be closed on June 2.  The second exhibit is a companion exhibition to Girl with a Pearl Earring featuring more than 200 rarely seen prints and drawings of the same era, all drawn from the permanent collections of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.  These were wonderful exhibitions and I visited these two exhibitions twice in order to absorb as much as possible, despite the fact that I'd seen the marquee painting by Johannes Vermeer in the Mauritshuis before. 

Much have been said about this now household name painting and I would not repeat much here.  But I can list a few my other favorites.



The first one was a small bird painting, The Goldfinch (above), by Carel Fabritius, a painter of the 17th century Dutch Golden Age, studied with Rembrandt van Rijn. Other favorite paintings included one by Rembrandt,  Portrait of an Elderly Man, 1667 (below)



Another standout was a genre painting by Pieter de Hooch, titled A man smoking and a woman drinking in a courtyard (below). 



The most overwhelming and lasting effects were actually from the "Rembrandt's Century" painting, with much moody engravings, etchings and drawings. 

My favorite was  Rembrandt's etching, The Landscape with the Three Trees:



I also love the amazing The Shell (Conus Marmoreus), a combination of etching, drypoint and engraving by Rembrandt (below):



Then there were Medea, or The Marraige of Jason and Creusa, 1648 by Rembrandt and his Christ Crucified between Two Thieves (The Three Crosses), 1653, both highly dramatic and terrifying:

There were more paintings and prints by other masters in these amazing exhibitions.  Do try to see these works!


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