"Masterpieces from the World's Museums in the Hermitage"
Jan Vermeer: Woman in Blue Reading a Letter
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

This exhibition, organized as part of the "Masterpieces from the World's Museums in the Hermitage" series features the canvas by Jan Vermeer Woman in Blue Reading a Letter (1662-64) that belongs to the collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The work represents a genre popular in the 17th century and known as "rebus painting" in which a love letter sets the plot and a map of Holland provides a "key" to the interpretation of the whole scene.

Vermeer produced a large number of paintings on the "love letter" theme in which he presented the idea of the harmonious unity of loving hearts. The map of the Dutch province of South Holland, where - in the city of Delft - Vermeer worked all his life, symbolizes the concepts of "homeland" and "mother country". It is a sort of reminder to the ordinary Dutch citizen of his chief civic duty - to preserve the independence of the country gained through 80 years of hard struggle.

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At the opening of the exhibition

Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky at the opening of the exhibition

The first visitor