Two very interesting art exhibitions will open for the public in New York City this week.

First, Vermeer’s famous melkmeisje painting will be in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and there’ll be a beautiful display with all five of the Met’s Vermeer paintings. This exhibition will run from September 10 through November 29.

Second, the South Street Seaport museum in NYC will have a exhibition on New Amsterdam, the first settlement on Manhattan. The Schaghen letter is on loan to the museum. The Schaghen letter is usually in the National Archives of the Netherlands in The Hague, it contains the earliest known reference to the ‘sale’ of Manhattan to the Dutch. New Amsterdam: The Island at the Center of the World will run from September 12, 2009 to January 3, 2010.

Finally, don’t forget the Judith Leyster exhibition in Washington D.C. that we wrote about earlier; it will be on display through November 29.

On a related note: the North Carolina Museum of Art will close its doors for a renovation this Labor Day; it will reopen in April 2010.