Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting, Musee du Louvre

Under a late-’80s-built glass pyramid, surrounded by a medieval fortress-turned-palace to the French kings, lies perhaps the world’s most famous museum. Of course, somewhere inside it languishes that lady of the mysterious smile … Da Vinci's Mona Lisa. Go smile back at her if you amina to withstand the queue the selfie extravaganza.

The highlight for the Cultural Season, however, is Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting.

The exhibit features only 12 of the 36 paintings by the mysterious Dutchman, interspersed with works by his contemporaries to show that while the subject matter he was tackling was on trend with other great names of olden Age — women sewing, a or dressing — his was an ry eye and a fine hand. nes Vermeer (1632-1675), it wasn’t the e carpet that mattered. It was the . His fine attention to the effects of n convey an intimacy to every scene mundane moments to transcend to the dly, his own Mona Lisa, aka Scarlet with an ear-ring, isn’t there. Still, what ous. emained fairly obscure during his s mystifying as that famous lady’s Until May 22. See louvre.fr/en