ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times

DATE: Sunday, December 3, 1995               TAG: 9512060020
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 4    EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: CARL HARTMAN ASSOCIATED PRESS 

AFTER 300 YEARS, DUTCH ARTIST GETS HIS FIRST BIG SHOW ... IN AMERICA

A Dutch painter near in time and genius to Rembrandt is getting his first big show after 300 years, not in their native Holland, but in the United States.

It took seven years for the National Gallery of Art and a leading Dutch museum to borrow the pictures they wanted by Johannes Vermeer, now considered one of the foremost painters of his time.

Even then, they got only 21 of the 35 Vermeer works known to have survived. Yet museum officials consider that a good haul.

``People like their Vermeers a lot,'' and seem to want to hold onto them until the last possible moment, said Earl A. Powell III, director of the National Gallery.

A major artist during his lifetime, Vermeer's work was little appreciated for many years after his death, In this century, he has come back into his own. He takes a simple subject - a woman pouring milk or writing a letter - and gives her image an emotional, sometimes mysterious meaning through realistic drawing and vivid colors. His genius is obvious.

The last of the 21 paintings arrived from Berlin's Staatliche Museum less than a week before the exhibit. It is an image of a woman in a bright yellow jacket, holding up her pearl necklace to the light from a window.

Another of the last pictures to arrive came from the Staedelisches Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt, Germany, after four years of negotiation. Known as ``The Geographer,'' it is thought to be a portrait of Anton van Leeuwenhoek, more famous as the man who perfected the microscope. He served as executor of Vermeer's meager estate.

Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., the curator in charge of the show for the National Gallery, said he had to make at least three trips to Germany to get the painting.

``They had a strict rule about taking pictures out of the building because trustees had been borrowing them to hang in their homes,'' he said in an interview.

Probably Vermeer's best-known work, a view of his home city of Delft, crossed the Atlantic for the first time for the show.

Vermeers were not always so hard to come by. A century ago, the ``Allegory of Faith'' - a rare religious painting from his last years - was sold for 700 German marks, about $170 at the time. It would bring millions now, but few have come on the market since then.

The last time so many of Vermeer's works came together in one place was at a sale in 1696.

Why did it take so long?

``People in the past must have thought it couldn't be done,'' Powell said.

Vermeer, who is often called Jan Vermeer, does not seem to have painted many pictures. He was an art dealer as well as a painter, and may have depended more on his business to make a living.

Though he was twice chosen headman of the Guild of St. Luke, the painters' association in Delft, Vermeer died in 1675 deep in debt, leaving his wife with 10 children to support. He was 43.

She sold 26 paintings for less than what had been asked for a single work during his lifetime.

``Johannes Vermeer,'' will be on view at the National Gallery until Feb. 11 and at the Mauritshuis in The Hague from March 1 through June 2. No other sites are scheduled.

LENGTH: Medium:   70 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  "Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid," painted in 1670 
          by Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer, is part of an exhibit on display 
          at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.