Tag: Angela Merkel

Angela Merkel and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

From the previous post – in Dresden with a Baroque master one day and the evening prior in Düsseldorf with a contemporary literary superstar. As I suggested: some of the perks of higher office!

As I post, I haven’t as yet seen this video, but the event has been well reported upon in Germany and I hear tell it was a successful meeting of two outwardly very different women – of different generations and heritage – but both of whom during the last decade or so have found (international) fame and influence, and a search for (and finding of) commonality that included, beyond their respective crafts of State and art, a quiet and personal discussion on grief springing from Adichie’s essay (now book) that I have previously discussed and an open and sincere invitation from Adichie for the soon to be ex-Bundeskanzlerin to visit Nigeria, that is, with all the freedoms and interests of the private person.

Vermeer in Dresden

In the waning days of her Kanzlerschaft, and plagued still by the crises that have defined it, Angela Merkel must surely crave for some moments of respite. One of them may well have been her opening last week, alongside the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, of the Johannes Vermeer. On Reflection exhibition at the Dresden Gemäldegalerie.

The exhibition has as its centerpiece the familiar Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, with an unfamiliar new look. After years of restoration, during which it was proven that the ‘picture within a picture’ on the rear wall (uncovered by x-ray imaging forty odd years ago) had been painted over by another hand than that of Vermeer, the Cupid has now been revealed and the painting restored to its original condition.

  • Before restoration
  • Restored to reveal Cupid on wall
Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, Johannes Vermeer, circa. 1657-59, Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden (SKD)

For a chronology of the painting’s not uneventful life, and the technical aspects of the restoration, refer to the SKD website (details are also in English). And, the NYT had a very informative article during the week.