Conservation

New Discoveries Offer Answers to Mystery of Frick's Vermeer

July 21, 2020

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. 

Conservation

The Conservation Department is responsible for the conservation, treatment, and technical study of the objects in the collection, as well as preservation issues for both the collection and the historic interiors of the Frick mansion. 

Masterpieces Return to the Galleries

portrait of seventeenth century woman dressed in ivory and gold with a lace ruff collar.
Masterpieces by Gilbert Stuart and Anthony Van Dyck Return to the Galleries
March 21, 2002 to April 25, 2002

Gilbert Stuart was the foremost portrait painter of the newly formed United States. He painted many of the most prominent figures of his day, including the first five American presidents, but none of the thousand portraits he made attained such renown as the three he painted from life of George Washington and those he replicated to order throughout his later career. To most visitors to The Frick Collection, Stuart's George Washington is instantly recognizable; in a collection of mainly European masterpieces, it is the only painting of an American by an American.

Past Exhibition: Rediscovered Tapestries

Two Rediscovered Tapestries
May 1, 2001 to September 9, 2001

In summer 2001, visitors enjoyed two eighteenth-century tapestries woven by the Brussels workshop of Peter van den Hecke (c. 1752). On display in the Music Room, these rare hangings are important for their state of preservation, the significance of their design, their royal provenance, and the evidence regarding the identity of their maker and manufacture. They depict scenes from Cervantes' novel Don Quixote de la Mancha, which proved to be an important literary source in the fields of fine and decorative arts for over two hundred years.