The artwork will be displayed at the Nakanoshima Art Museum in Osaka from Friday, while its home museum, the Mauritshuis in The Hague, is closed for renovations until September 20.
Read more What is that small hole in the bathroom sink really for? Not everyone knows
“This girl’s journey is a special opportunity for the Mauritshuis Museum to share her with the Japanese public, perhaps for the very last time,” said museum director Martine Gosselink.
The museum usually does not lend this work, “because it is our most important and precious painting,” but the renovation allowed it to travel, Gosselink told AFP news agency.
Enthusiastic fans from Japan often visit the Dutch institution, and other countries such as China, Singapore, and South Korea have also requested to borrow it, she said.
“But we chose Japan because Japan has a wealth of fans. And they really love Vermeer. They love the ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’,” Gosselink said.
“And the number of visitors coming from Japan to the Mauritshuis every year is very large. So we thought that if one country deserved this girl, it should be Japan,” she said.
“The Northern Mona Lisa”
The Osaka exhibition, which runs until September 27, will feature a total of twelve paintings from the Mauritshuis collection, including J. Vermeer’s “Diana and Her Nymphs” and Rembrandt’s “The Laughing Man.”
Due to the enigmatic expression of its subject, reminiscent of the famous Leonardo da Vinci portrait, the painting nicknamed “The Northern Mona Lisa” gained worldwide fame when it inspired a bestselling novel, which was later adapted into a Hollywood film.
Read more After the shocking video from Palanga – the Child Rights Service spoke out: «Just one minute…»
The small canvas depicts a young woman standing against a dark background, her head turned toward the viewer, with a pearl earring gleaming from beneath a blue and cream turban.
The portrait was last lent in 2023 for a less exotic trip to the Amsterdam State Museum.
From 2012 to 2014, it went on a world tour while work was carried out at the Mauritshuis Museum.
The Osaka exhibition will be the fourth visit of this work to Japan.
After the 1984 exhibition in Tokyo, the painting was brought to Osaka to mark the 400th anniversary of Japan-Netherlands relations and attracted 600,000 viewers, reported the newspaper “Asahi Shimbun,” which is organizing the latest exhibition.
It was also brought to Tokyo and Kobe in 2012 and attracted 1.2 million fans, Asahi noted.
The Mauritshuis Museum will be closed from August 24 to September 20 for maintenance work, and the “Girl with a Pearl Earring” will be exhibited again in The Hague from early October.
Read more Kanye West concerts in Russia cause a stir – even the Kremlin got involved
