Johannes Vermeer is one of my favourite artists. When we lived in The Hague, I would regularly go to the Mauritshuis to admire Girl with a Pearl Earring, his exquisite View of Delft, and the less well known Diana and her Nymphs. Vermeer ranks as one of the greatest of Dutch artists, and is perhaps best known for his intimate household scenes of life in 17th century Delft, where he lived his entire life.
He is often referred to as The Sphinx of Delft because so little was known of him until recent times. Even now he remains a mysterious figure, despite his popularity in his hometown. That mystery is multiplied by the fact that only 36 paintings that have been definitively attributed to him survive to the modern day. All now scattered across major art galleries around the world.
Given the popularity of his work, it was almost unimaginable to me that I might be able to stand in front of one of his paintings in a gallery where I was the only person. Yet, here I was in the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in Braunschweig, admiring his Girl with a Wineglass in grand isolation. If the security guard hadn’t wandered past and jogged me out of my revery, I might still be there.
Much like Braunschweig, or Brunswick as it’s known in English, the museum was a revelation. The mid-18th century building was originally designed as an art gallery by Duke Carl I of Brunswick-Lüneburg to share the art collection of his predecessor, Duke Anton Ulrich, with the people of Brunswick. This makes it one of the oldest museums in Europe, and these artworks still form the core of the permanent collection.
Today, there are 320 paintings on display, including works by Rembrandt, Albrecht Dürer, Goya, Rubens, Lucas Cranach and Käthe Kollwitz. It is utterly remarkable that on a Saturday afternoon it was virtually empty. As I was finishing in the galleries dedicated to painting, a mother and young son arrived. Other than that it was just me and the security guards. I’m not complaining, but where was everyone?
Back out into the sunlight of an autumnal day in Lower Saxony, I strolled through the Museumspark and contemplated the good fortune of having not just a painting to myself, but an entire museum. I mean, if you paid €30 for the blockbuster Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam last year, which brought together 28 of his paintings, you still wouldn’t have seen Girl with a Wineglass. It was that special.
I wandered back towards the Magniviertel area and the St. Magni Kirche, and found myself outside Strupait. A pleasant little cafe looking over Kurt-Seeleke-Platz. It was warm enough to sit outside and watch the steady flow of people wandering into the Old Town. Braunschweig did not come out of the Second World War unscathed, it barely came out of the Second World War at all, the Magniviertel is a reminder of what was lost.
I wandered down through the narrow cobbled streets of Magniviertel with its collection of half-timbered houses. As well as the typical mix of restaurants and cafes, the area has a good number of independent shops and galleries. It’s not big, a walk through the area doesn’t take long. I just had time to pop to Mutter Habenicht, a bar that if it was a person, to use a British euphemism, would be a ‘bit of a character’.
A table with plates and food hangs upside down on the ceiling, and all manner of other memorabilia dangles from the walls and ceiling. It’s a bit of a Brunswick institution, the food definitely on the traditional, artery clogging scale. It was getting late and I walked the 2km back to the station and my train to Berlin: a first return to the city on the Spree since our departure for Brussels in 2021.
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