Vermeer exhibit to unite Milkmaid, Girl with a Pearl Earring

The Amsterdam Rijksmuseum will unite two iconic paintings from Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer early next year — The Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Milkmaid

The Amsterdam Rijksmuseum will unite two iconic paintings from Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer early next year — The Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Milkmaid.

In an unprecedented blockbuster exhibit starting in February, the most famous museum in the Netherlands will bring together 27 of the 35 known paintings of the 17th-century artist who had the uncanny genius of letting a soothing inner light exude from his canvas.

Nowhere is it more apparent than in the two paintings that have become as quintessential to Dutch art as any work of Vincent van Gogh or Rembrandt.

In Thursday's announcement of the Feb. 10-June 4 exhibit, the musuem said it will be the first time in over a quarter-century that the paintings will be united in the same building, dating back to a 1996 show at The Hague's Mauritshuis, home to the Girl with a Pearl Earring.

The Rijksmuseum did extensive work on The Milkmaid and discovered that the vast unadorned white wall behind her, was not always meant to be like that. With special technologies, a sketch under the final layer of paint was discovered which shows a more cluttered background with a jug holder and a fire basket. Later, Vermeer thought better of it and went for the distinctive white background.

New York's Frick Collection will lend its three Vermeers which will be shown together outside of New York over a century after the museum acquired them.