Guided tour of the Vermeer Centrum Delft
The following guided tour is available for groups at the Vermeer Centrum Delft:
A. Guided tour “Meet the Master of Light”
Duration: 60 minutes
Maximum number of participants (per tour guide): 15 people
Languages: available in Dutch, English, French and German
Location: Vermeer Centrum Delft
Cost: €50 per tour guide (excluding admission ticket per person)
The guided tour “Meet the Master of Light” is a tour of the three exhibitions at the Vermeer Centrum Delft, namely: The World of Vermeer, The Vermeer Studio and The Love Messages in Vermeer's Paintings.
In The World of Vermeer, visitors are guided through Vermeer's entire surviving oeuvre – in reproductions, life-size and in chronological order. They discover why Vermeer is considered the master of light of the 17th century. The Vermeer Studio explains how Vermeer made his own brushes and paint and which special pigments he used for this. Attention is also paid to perspective and to the workings and effects of the Camera Obscura, which was a hot topic among painters and scientists in the 17th century. In the exhibition Love Messages in Vermeer's Paintings, visitors are introduced to 17th-century emblemata: symbolic messages in painting that often escape us today, but which were widely understood four centuries ago.
Each tour guide can take a maximum of 15 visitors. If the group is larger, we can arrange for multiple tour guides.
Registration
For questions or reservations, please contact us at reserveringen@vermeerdelft.nl. Please allow at least two weeks to arrange everything.
Guided tours in Delft
If you are curious about the link between Johannes Vermeer and the city of Delft, you can choose from the three guided tours below:
B. Guided tour “Along the locations from the life and work of Johannes Vermeer”
Duration: 75 minutes
Maximum number of participants (per tour guide): 15 people
Languages: available in Dutch, English, French and German
Location: Historic city centre of Delft
Cost: €55 per tour guide
This tour takes you to a number of places where Vermeer lived and worked. You will walk past his birthplace; the place where he lived with his wife and 11 children in the house of his mother-in-law Maria Thins, and where he worked; and past the place where the houses he painted once stood, which we now know as “the little street”. In about 75 minutes, the tour guide will take you through historic Delft, walking through the same streets that Johannes Vermeer walked over 350 years ago.
C. Guided tour “Baptismal church of Johannes Vermeer & Antoni van Leeuwenhoek”*
Duration: 30 minutes
Maximum number of participants (per tour guide): 15 people
Languages: available in Dutch, English, French and German
Location: Nieuwe Kerk Delft
Cost: €55 per tour guide (excluding admission ticket per person)
The baptismal register of the Nieuwe Kerk is kept in the Delft City Archives. On one of the pages of this book, which records the dates on which children were baptised, we find the names of both the painter Johannes Vermeer and the discoverer of the microscope, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek. Both famous Delft residents are therefore almost the same age and grew up in the city centre of Delft. Antoni lived in the Hippolytusbuurt neighbourhood and Johannes on the Voldersgracht, less than 50 metres apart. Did they play hopscotch, marbles or other games together? We don't know. The backgrounds of the two families were incomparable. In any case, they must have known each other. One was a painter, art dealer and innkeeper, the other a cloth merchant with numerous administrative positions and a researcher. After Vermeer's death, Van Leeuwenhoek acted as executor on behalf of the city of Delft.
The tour of the Nieuwe Kerk tells their story, but above all about the Nieuwe Kerk and its importance throughout the centuries.
D. Guided tour “Burial church of Johannes Vermeer and family & Antoni van Leeuwenhoek”*
Duration: 30 minutes
Maximum number of participants (per tour guide): 15 people
Languages: available in Dutch, English, French and German
Location: Nieuwe Kerk Delft
Cost: €55 per tour guide (excluding admission ticket per person)
On 15 December 1675, after a short illness, Johannes Vermeer was laid to rest in the Oude Kerk. After his trip to Gouda – where his mother-in-law's lands had been flooded as part of the Dutch waterline – he returned and died after only one day. He was buried in the Oude Kerk, poor as a church mouse, with 14 pallbearers and one tolling of the bells. In other words, it was an expensive funeral for which his mother-in-law, Maria Thins, undoubtedly dug deep into her pockets.
The Oude Kerk is not only the resting place of Johannes Vermeer (and Antoni van Leeuwenhoek), but also of many other famous and unknown residents of Delft. During the tour, the guide will provide more information about a number of the graves and also tell you about the importance of the church.
*You can only book tours C and D above in combination with Vermeer tours A and/or B.
Registration
If you would like to book one of these tours, please email reserveringen@vermeerdelft.nl at least two weeks in advance.
