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Curatorial Blog

  • What We Look at When We Look at a Vermeer

    On the occasion of the return of The Frick Collection’s three paintings by Johannes Vermeer to their display at Frick Madison, Christopher Snow Hopkins, Associate Editor, reflects on the experience of viewing the canvases in the Rijksmuseum’s monumental Vermeer exhibition this year.

  • Return of the Vermeers: New Insights on Three Masterworks

    Freshly reinstalled at Frick Madison after their presentation in the Rijksmuseum’s landmark Vermeer exhibition, The Frick Collection’s three canvases by the “Sphinx of Delft” have divulged a few more secrets from their layered histories.

  • The Frick's Velázquez in "The Maltese Falcon"

    Christopher Snow Hopkins, Associate Editor, examines the appearance of the Frick’s King Philip IV of Spain by Diego Velázquez in the classic film The Maltese Falcon—a tantalizing cameo that has not been commented upon before.

  • Picturing Paradise: T. S. Eliot, John Milton, and Jean-Honoré Fragonard

    On May 3, 1947, the poet T. S. Eliot delivered a lecture at the Frick on John Milton’s Paradise Lost. In honor of the centenary of the publication of Eliot’s highly influential poem The Waste Land, explore the surprising connections between this famous work, Milton’s Edenic verse, and the lush forests of Fragonard’s Progress of Love.

  • Mapping Provenance: Bellini's "St. Francis in the Desert"

    Giovanni Bellini’s St. Francis in the Desert (ca. 1475–80) is one of the Frick’s most beloved works of art, but there was a time when it could not find a buyer. Explore the ups and downs of the art market through an interactive map charting the panel’s peregrinations, from quattrocento Venice to its temporary home at Frick Madison.

  • Mapping Provenance: Fragonard's Progress of Love

    What happens to a work of art when it is rejected by its patron? Explore an interactive map to discover how the canvases in Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s Progress of Love series were scorned by a royal mistress, rolled up for twenty years in the Louvre, and more than tripled in number on their way from eighteenth-century France to the fourth floor of Frick Madison.

  • Mapping Provenance: Holbein's "Sir Thomas More"

    The journey of an artwork is rarely a smooth one, and what we know about the ownership history of Holbein’s Sir Thomas More (1527) is notable for its gaps. Explore an interactive map tracing the fragmentary path of this panel from Tudor England to the second floor of Frick Madison.

  • Mapping Provenance: Vermeer's "Mistress and Maid"

    Digital tools allow us to visualize the trajectory of an artwork through time and space. Explore an interactive map tracing the meandering path of Johannes Vermeer’s Mistress and Maid (ca. 1666–67) around the globe, from Vermeer’s studio in Delft in the seventeenth century to the second floor of Frick Madison in 2021.

  • New Discoveries Offer Answers to Mystery of Frick's Vermeer

    The Frick's beloved Mistress and Maid (1666–67) by Johannes Vermeer poses many unanswered questions, notably its seemingly unfinished background. A recent technical study in collaboration with The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Doerner Institut uncovers important new information about the painting, one of only thirty-six works attributed to the artist. 

  • Special Exhibition: "Henry Arnhold’s Meissen Palace: Celebrating a Collector"

    Decorative Arts Curator Charlotte Vignon discusses the current Meissen exhibition, honoring the late Henry H. Arnhold.

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