Mauritshuis director Emilie Gordenker suggests a trio of paintings from the “Girl With a Pearl Earring” exhibit worth lingering over:
- Carel Fabritius' "Goldfinch" (1654): "It's a tiny little painting (13 by 9 inches) but it is just such a wonderful illusion where the bird seems to be alive and singing. We don't really know why it was made or what it was for, but it really is one of our treasures. It was painted by a pupil of Rembrandt's who left a very small body of work."
- Jacob van Ruisdael's "View of Haarlem With Bleaching Grounds" (1670-1675): "In the Dutch world of great landscape painters, he's the master," Gordenker said. She marveled at how the artist got in one small painting (22 by 24 inches) dramatic cloud formations in the top two-thirds, the Holland city skyline on the low horizon and, in the foreground, fields where strips of linen were rolled out to be bleached by the sun. And all this was accomplished in his studio from preparatory drawings executed in black chalk at a site overlooking the city.
- Rembrandt's "Portrait of an Elderly Man" (1667): One of four Rembrandts on display, this is a very casual portrait from a formal time, capturing a gray-haired gent unshaven and with his collar untied, making the depiction seem all the more true to life. "Incredibly rich and deep," Gordenker said.
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