Among the many pleasures afforded by The Frick Collection are the small and focused special exhibitions organized with some regularity, most often to contextualize and illuminate a work from the museum’s own holdings. Some center on particular artists. Others reunite long-dispersed pairs or groups of works. Occasionally, a celebrated single painting by an artist not represented in the collection will visit from another museum to enhance our understanding of the Frick’s related treasures. Despite their minimal size, these intimate shows are essentially blockbusters in terms of the excellence of the works on view and the level of scholarship that accompanies them. But unlike traditional blockbusters, which are almost always large, dauntingly crowded, and exhausting, these miniature exhibitions allow us the luxury of unhurried, concentrated, close looking in a setting known for its civilized tranquility. Obviously, the Frick is not the only museum to organize this type of small, deceptively robust exhibition. Both the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, can boast of similarly economical and engaging installations, but the Frick seems to present them more frequently and treats them as major parts of their program, rather than as addenda.

This fall, the Frick’s enlightening tribute to the virtues of slow looking and thoughtful study is “The Charterhouse