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Masters Of The Everyday: Dutch Artists In The Age Of Vermeer: Masterpieces from the Queen’s art collection go on display at Buckingham Palace

One of only 34 known Vermeer paintings is among the exhibition

Matilda Battersby
Thursday 12 November 2015 07:28 EST
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Rembrandt’s An Old Woman called ‘The Artist's Mother’ from the Royal Collection
Rembrandt’s An Old Woman called ‘The Artist's Mother’ from the Royal Collection (Royal Collection/ Queen Elizabeth II)

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Masterpieces by Rembrandt and Vermeer are among works set to go on display at Buckingham Palace when the royal residence allows public access to its Dutch Masters collection.

Collected by kings and queens since Charles I, Masters Of The Everyday: Dutch Artists In The Age Of Vermeer includes several rare examples from the Dutch school.

Rembrandt’s An Old Woman called ‘The Artist's Mother’ is among them, an extraordinary portrait and the first by him to reach England, revealing his fascination with old age and superb facial detail.

One of only 34 known paintings by Johannes Vermeer are among the notable works being unveiled at The Queen's Gallery on Friday. Other pieces include work by Jan Steen owned by King George IV, who was the most enthusiastic royal collector of art from the Netherlands.

Steen's picture Interior Of A Tavern With Card Players And A Violin Player (1665) - which depicts drinkers playing cards - and his piece Merrymaking In A Tavern With A Couple Dancing (c1670) explore “the themes of drinking, music and love that are typical of genre painting of the Dutch Golden Age”, according to the Royal Collection.

A Woman At Her Toilet by Steen is of a young woman getting ready for bed as she puts on a stocking while sitting on her unmade bed, next to which is a chamber pot.

Vermeer's Lady At The Virginals With A Gentleman, or The Music Lesson, painted in the early 1660s, entered the Royal Collection in 1762 when it was bought by George III.

The exhibition, which is a partnership with the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis in The Hague, runs from 13 November 2015 to 14 February 2016.

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