February 26, 2018

‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ in the spotlight next week

Filed under: Art,Technology by Orangemaster @ 8:48 pm

2-stateofthear

As hinted to in an article about using the Rijksmuseum’s scanner to catch baddies, the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague will be using a Macro-X-ray Fluorescence scanner (MA-XRF) scanner to analyse Vermeer’s ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ next week, to find out more about the painting.

And lucky us at 24oranges HQ, we’ll be there and bring back photos if we’re allowed to take any, as we have ‘a man on the inside’.

Nicknamed ‘the Dutch Mona Lisa’, Vermeer’s iconic painting was last studied in 1994 during a conservation project. In those days, they had to take paint samples from the priceless work to examine it, something that doesn’t have to be done any more thanks to technology. Scanners and X-ray machines don’t even need to touch the surface of the canvas and can provide new insights into how Vermeer painted the girl and the materials he used.

Whether her earring is a pearl (I’m in the ‘no’ camp) or some shiny trinket and whether or not the girl had some sort of connection with Vermeer is still a matter of speculation.

(Link and photo: phys.org)

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August 7, 2015

FBI releases video of unsolved historical art heist

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 10:20 pm

Boston-museum

A video of one of the biggest art heists of all times, which took place in 1990 Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, has been released on YouTube (bizarrely marked as ‘unlisted’) in order to help the FBI find any new leads.

On 18 March 1990 two men dressed as Boston police gained entrance to the museum by telling a security guard they were responding to a disturbance. The guard should not have let them in, got handcuffed, as did his two other colleagues.

The 13 works stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, included paintings by Rembrandt and Vermeer, which to this day have not been recovered. Now that the main suspects are deceased, the FBI wants to find these cultural masterpieces. The museum is offering a cool 5 million USD to information leading to the recovery of the stolen artwork as long as they are in good condition. The total amount of artwork stolen is estimated at about 500 million USD.

Look at the surveillance footage linked to the heist:

(Links: www.crimesite.nl, www.thenewstribune.com, Photo: www.thenewstribune.com)

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April 25, 2015

Dutch master made with coffee cups

Filed under: Art,Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 12:15 pm

Vermeer-cups

Students from the American University in Dubai have made a replica of Vermeer’s ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ using plastic coffee cups or pods, as they are sometimes known. The original can be admired at the Mauritshuis in The Hague.

“After pixellating the image to basic color units, it was split into four equal quarters. the sections were then divided amongst four groups in his class along with heaping piles of the recycled coffee pods. hundreds of units later, and the image was compiled into the reinterpretation of the 17th-century classic.”

(Link and photo: www.designboom.com)

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October 23, 2014

Banksy makes his own Vermeer in Bristol

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 10:06 am

Bristol, UK now has their very own ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ revisited by Banksy and called ‘Girl with the Pierced Eardrum’, which has already been defaced. The earring is an alarm box.

(Link: www.independent.co.uk, Photo of Banksy’s Cleaner by Dan Brady, some rights reserved)

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October 17, 2014

Playing with your food can be art

Filed under: Art,Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 12:00 pm

Vla-Vermeer

Daniel Kok makes artwork with custard, in Dutch known as ‘vla’, which comes in cartons like milk cartons. He’s going strong on instagram, showcasing Dutch and international portraits. He calls it ‘Vlaart’ (‘vla’ and ‘art’). Kok says his daughter asked him to make her something in 2011 and has been honing his custard art skills every since.

(Link and image: www.froot.nl)

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June 26, 2014

Gold and pearls: Mauritshuis museum to reopen in The Hague

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 11:16 am

300px-Johannes_Vermeer_(1632-1675)_-_The_Girl_With_The_Pearl_Earring_(1665)

The Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, famous for housing iconic paintings such as ‘Girl with the Pearl Earring’ by Vermeer (see pic), will officially be reopened by King Willem-Alexander tomorrow. The Mauritshuis underwent renovations and refurbishing for two years and has been extended and made more easily accessible, with the entrance moved the main square. In fact, the renovation has made the building look more like the old building originally designed by Jacob van Campen in the 17th century.

Dutch Golden Age painting is the one of many good reasons to visit the museum where besides Vermeer you can also admire ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp’ by Rembrandt and ‘The Goldfinch’ by Fabritius.

(Links: www.mauritshuis.nl, Photo of Girl with The Pearl Earring by Thebrid, some rights reserved.

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December 26, 2012

Dutch masters recreated through ironing

Filed under: Art by Branko Collin @ 6:10 pm

A Philips ad for the company’s line of irons has been doing the rounds on the Internet.

In it an anonymous artist recreates portraits by famous Dutch painters such as Girl with a Pearl Earring by Vermeer and self-portraits by Van Gogh and Rembrandt using little more than a white sheet and a steam iron.

The ad was made by the Russian branch of DDB, a worldwide advertising agency.

(Photo: crop of the video. Link: Trendbeheer)

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