The Complete Interactive Vermeer Catalogue

The signature

Center left on frame of picture on back wall: IVMEER (IVM in ligature).

(Click here to access a complete study of Vermeer's signatures.)

Dates

c. 1666
Albert Blankert, Vermeer: 1632–1675, 1975

c. 1665–1666
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., The Public and the Private in the Age of Vermeer, London, 2000

c. 1665–1667
Walter Liedtke, Vermeer: The Complete Paintings, New York, 2008

c. 1662–1665
Wayne Franits, Vermeer, 2015

(Click here to access a complete study of the dates of Vermeer's paintings).

Technical report

The ground appears to be a single layer of a warm, light ocher color, containing chalk, (plant?) black, red and yellow iron oxide (perhaps burnt sienna and yellow ocher) and lead white.

The brushwork of the final paint layers is very thin, except in the lighter tones. Thicker paint has been used only in the form of rounded dots for the highlights. Two preparations of lead-tin yellow were used in the yellow jacket: one coarsely ground, and the other more finely ground and paler, used for the highlights on the shoulder pleats. X-radiography and infrared reflectography indicate that Vermeer made an alteration to the angle of the quill and to some of the fingers holding it.

* Johannes Vermeer (exh. cat., National Gallery of Art and Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis - Washington and The Hague, 1995, edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.)

The painting in its frame

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Provenance

Exhibitions

The painting in scale

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Portrayals of a "new woman"

Curiosity (detail)
Gerrit ter Borch
c. 1660
Oil on canvas, 76 x 62 cm.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Art historian Mariët Westermann noted that during the 17th century there was a sudden and unprecedented increase in first-person statements in the Dutch Republic. Diaries, journals, soul-searching poems, self-portraits, not the least, private letters, that "reading and writing have in common the capacity of independent thought associated with not only men but for the first time with the women who pose in Vermeer's painting. This mental ability is figured not merely by the theme of writing or reading by averted gazes." However, it was not Vermeer who pioneered this way of representing the Dutch woman but Gerrit ter Borch in a series of nuanced interiors where women began to receive the same intellectual and psychological regard that was hitherto afforded only to the male figure in the visual arts." Nonetheless, Vermeer's elegant letter writer cannot be taken as the norm because, as Ann Jensen Adams pointed out, "a substantial proportion of 17th-century men and women were literate to some degree but fewer were able to compose a formal letter or craft letters in a fine hand."

Critics have often noted that women in Vermeer's paintings cannot be considered beauties in the conventional sense of the word. Their beauty derives from the way they are painted and from their elegant context. Lisa Vergara wrote that "the qualities that we attribute to Vermeer's work as a whole apply equally to the women they picture: paintings and personages share dignity, equilibrium, an exceptional vivid presence and abstract purity. The figures range from girlish to maternal yet all are youthful with high curved foreheads, features that evenly balance the individual and the classical, and simple believable postures. Their costuming—its coloring, shapes and associations—contributes so much to bodily construction and expression that the absence of nudes from Vermeer's oeuvre hardly seems surprising."

The "noblest emotions & desires"

A page from
Inleyding tot de Hooge
Schoole der Schilderkonst
Samuel van Hoogstraten
Rotterdam, 1678

To understand the artistic climate in which Vermeer worked, it is useful to consult prevalent art theory. During those times, it went without being questioned that history, and the painting of human figures were the highest forms of art.

Samuel Van Hoogstraten, who introduced the doctrine of the hierarchy of subjects to Dutch art theory in his Inleiding tot de Hooge Schoole der Schilderkunst, wrote that the highest level (the third in his scheme) of painting was to show the noblest emotions and desires of rational human beings. In regards to portraiture: "Indeed, those portrait painters who create accurate resemblances, and imitate eyes, noses and mouths all skillfully, I would not wish to place...above the first grade unless they make their faces overflow with the quality of the intellectual soul."

Vermeer's pearls

This young woman seems to be wearing a glass "drop earring" which has been varnished to look like an immense pearl. Such earrings were fashionable in Holland, with many examples seen in paintings by Van Mieris, Metsu and Ter Borch. Artificial pearls were invented by M. Jacquin in France around this time, thin spheres of glass filled with l'essence d'orient, a preparation made of white wax and silvery scales of a river fish called ablette, or bleak. Cultured pearls were also coming in from Venice.

Pearls are linked with vanity but also with virginity—a wide enough iconographic spectrum. In the 17th century, pearls were an important status symbol. In 1660, English diarist Samuel Pepys paid 4 1/2 pounds for a pearl necklace, and in 1666 he paid 80 pounds for another, which at the time amounted to about 45 and 800 guilders respectively (an average Dutch house might cost 1,000 guilders). At about the same time, the traveling French art connoisseur Balthasar de Monconys had been shown a single-figure painting by Vermeer, reputedly purchased for 600 guilders, a price he considered outrageous.

The largest known pearl with a perfect skin or "orient" had a circumference of 4 1/2 inches.

In the 17th century Netherlands, pearls held a significant and layered symbolism within the context of art, fashion, and society. With their lustrous sheen and rarity, pearls became synonymous with wealth and status. When portrayed in portraits, pearls often indicated the sitter's wealth, social standing, or the family's prosperity. But beyond mere opulence, pearls had deeper connotations.

The pure, unblemished surface of a pearl symbolized innocence, purity, and virtue. In portraits of women, especially brides or young women, pearls underscored their chastity and moral integrity. This symbolism was rooted in ancient traditions and religious contexts where pearls represented purity and were sometimes associated with the Virgin Mary.

Furthermore, in a more universal context, the pearl's origin story itself — born from a grain of sand transformed within the confines of an oyster — made it a symbol of transformation, patience, and the idea that beauty and value can emerge from adversity.

However, there was also a cautionary aspect to the portrayal of pearls in Dutch art. Given the Dutch Republic's emphasis on humility, frugality, and the dangers of vanity, pearls could also serve as a reminder of the transient nature of material wealth. In still life paintings, amidst symbols of vanitas such as skulls, wilting flowers, and timepieces, pearls reminded viewers of the fleeting nature of life and the superficiality of earthly riches.

Vermeer & the "scholar portrait"

Portrait of Johan van
Beverwijck (1594–1647) in his Study
Jan Olis
c.1640
Oil on panel, 25.7 x 20.5 cm.
Mauritshuis, The Hague

While the intimate mood of this work is indeed impressive, its compositional origin is not derived from conventional portraiture. Vermeer expert Walter Liedtke highlighted that Vermeer, "with his gift for creative synthesis, saw that a newly fashionable type of genre picture, evidently introduced by Gerrit ter Borch, could be modified expressively by adopting an arrangement familiar from Dutch and Flemish 'scholar portraits,' such as Rubens' Caspar Gevartius, Van Dyck's Lucas van Uffel and Rembrandt's Portrait of a Scholar. This type was well-known through prints and had been treated on a small scale by several Dutch painters, as exemplified in Jan Olis's Portrait of Johan van Beverwijck in his Studio, dating back to about 1640."

Dutch and Flemish paintings of scholars, often referred to as "scholar portraits" or "learned portraits," were a popular genre in the 17th century. These paintings depicted individuals who were educated, intellectual and often associated with the world of learning, scholarship and science. Such portraits aimed to convey the sitter's erudition, expertise and engagement in intellectual pursuits. In these portraits, scholars were typically shown in a contemplative or studious pose, often seated at a desk or surrounded by books, scientific instruments, maps or globes, which symbolized their dedication to knowledge and their contributions to various academic fields.

Vermeer's "still lifes"

While not a single still life painted by Vermeer is known, the informal still life grouping within the present work is considered one of the artist's most refined passages. Vermeer appears to have relegated his concerns about still life painting to the recess of the background wall in the form of a dark Vanitas. This anonymous work, barely discernible today, very likely belonged to his mother-in-law Maria Thins. Most historians would concur that Vermeer would have never included such a sizable element in his composition in an arbitrary manner, even though the symbolic interpretations proposed by art historians thus far are not unanimous.

Vermeer might have altogether shunned the still life genre. According to Samuel van Hoogstraten, a painter and art theoretician who codified the hierarchical status of subject matter in painting, still life occupied the lowest tier. He demeaned still-life painters as "the foot soldiers in the army of art." While still life might be admirable from a technical perspective, Van Hoogstraten believed it did not demand the artist to engage their imagination in the manner that history paintings or paintings of figures did.

Despite theoretical warnings, still life paintings significantly outnumbered history paintings, which Van Hoogstraten positioned at the uppermost tier. He claimed that history paintings revealed "the noblest actions and intentions of rational beings."

Lead-tin yellow: the queen of colors

A Young Woman playing a Harpsichord
to a Young Man (detail)
Jan Steen
c. 1659
Oil on oak, 42.3 x 33 cm.
National Gallery, London

Natural ultramarine blue may be considered the king of Vermeer's palette, while lead-tin yellow could justly be called its queen. All the yellow morning jackets were painted with lead-tin yellow, and it served as an admixture to modify the color of other paints. Lead-tin yellow, a thick and grainy paint, applied well with excellent hiding power. It was one of the most common bright pigments, relatively inexpensive to produce.

Lead-tin yellow held various names in the past. Italian manuscripts referred to a color known as giallolino, identical to lead-tin yellow. The present name, lead-tin yellow, is self-explanatory, originating from heating a mixture of red lead and tin dioxide at temperatures ranging from about 650°C to 800°C. Lower temperatures produced warmer yellow hues, while higher temperatures resulted in more lemon-colored tones. This pigment exhibited a fine and uniform particle size, offering strong opaque color, particularly suitable for meticulous paintings. In the Netherlands, it found favor among flower painters as the base color for yellow flowers. Due to its high lead content, lead-tin yellow is highly toxic. Its gradual disappearance after 1750 lacks a satisfactory explanation.

Conservator Melanie Gifford from the National Gallery discovered that two distinct preparations of lead-tin yellow were employed in the yellow jacket of A Lady Writing. Vermeer appears to have initially created the strong highlights with a coarser variant of lead-tin yellow, subsequently refining the modeling and chiaroscuro with a finer one. Gifford highlights Vermeer's technique of "texturing the underpaint using granular pigments and bold brushwork. These textured underpaint passages persisted in the final image, drawing the viewer's attention. The lightest sections indeed capture the most light in the painting."

Vermeer blended lead-tin yellow with various shades of blue to achieve delicately nuanced greens. The green trompe l'œil curtain in Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window resulted from combining lead-tin yellow and azurite. This same combination emerges in the green shutter of The Little Street.

Evoking form & space with paint

When compared to the wide range of paints available today in any art supply store, the 17th-century Dutch painter had to make do with a paltry few. Especially scarce were the so-called "strong colors" or bright colors. Even the finest paints of those times cannot compare in brilliance to the modern cadmium reds or yellows, not to mention the dazzling array of artificially manufactured greens and violets introduced towards the end of the 19th century.

To expand the visual effects of their paintings and enhance color intensity, 17th-century artists like Vermeer learned to exploit not only contrast in tone and color temperature but also the natural consistency, coarseness and transparency of paint. Brushwork played a vital role as well in creating the illusion of form and space.

Painters understood that different paint consistencies evoke distinct spatial qualities. Heavy impasto seems to advance toward the viewer, becoming more tangible, while thin, transparent paint tends to recede, evoking atmosphere rather than substance. As a result, the bright passages of a painting, which generally corresponded to its most crucial parts, were executed in thick, coarse impasto. Conversely, shadowed areas were painted with thin layers to capture the intangible nature of shadows. By juxtaposing areas of impasto with thin paint, the picture's surface becomes more dynamic than if painted with a continuous layer of uniform paint.

Such juxtaposition is evident in Lady Writing. The yellow satin sleeves are built up with a coarse yet pure lead-tin yellow. The brushwork defining the fabric's tucks and folds is clearly visible. The combined effect of impasto paint and the brush's irregularities creates a sparkling effect that naturally draws the eye, enhancing the garment's material presence. In contrast, the deep gray of the background wall is painted with unmodulated paint, so thin that the brown underlayer occasionally peeks through.

Listen to period music

Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer (1692–1766)
Concerto Armonico no. 2, Andante [920 KB]
http://www.amazon.com/Wassenaer-Concerti-Unico-Wilhelm-van/dp/B00006RHPO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1255264489&sr=1-2

Dutch light

The play of light on a Delft antique shop window

Although the dim illumination of the present picture reminds us of the difficulties faced by the painter who worked there, with respect, for example, to southern European artists who enjoyed sunlight nearly all year around.

Perhaps, it is precisely because light was such a scarce commodity in the Netherlands that Dutch painters devoted so much of their talents to rendering its innumerable activities. Certainly, of all its practitioners, Vermeer was the Dutch artist who made light itself one of the principal subjects of his art.

Dutch weather was, and still is, characterized by heavy rain, intermittent drizzle and cloudy skies much of the year. Even on the sunniest days, rapidly passing clouds can dramatically change indoors light within minutes, if not seconds. While the fickleness of northern light probably affected the activities or humors of the working population to some degree, it must conditioned the painter more deeply. By force, the Dutch artist was constrained to develop his powers of observation and visual memory beyond those of his southern counterparts.

Daylight hours vary between the Netherlands and Italy due to their latitudinal differences. The Netherlands, being farther north, has shorter daylight hours in winter (around 7-8 hours) and longer hours in summer (around 16-17 hours). Italy, located farther south, has relatively longer daylight hours throughout the year, with around 9-10 hours in winter and 15-16 hours in summer. These differences result from Earth's tilt and orbit around the sun.

Were Vermeer's compositions really balanced ?

Vermeer writers have recurrently singled out Vermeer's works for their compositional refineries and exquisite aesthetic balance. In a recent paper, the art historian Paul Taylor argued that the concept of aesthetic balance, which is a fundamental precept of 20th-century pictorial art, was simply not available to the 17th-century Dutch artist. Taylor's objection rests on the fact that "contemporary art theoretical texts written in Dutch provide no evidence that 17th-century Dutch and Flemish artists tried to achieve an overall balance of design." "In fact, I do not know of any use of the idea of compositional balance in any art theoretical text in any language before the 19th century: the earliest instance of the concept's employment that I have been able to find is in the work of John Ruskin."

How then, did Vermeer organize his compositions if not according to aesthetic criteria? Taylor argues that Gérard de Lairesse, an accomplished history painter and most influential art writer of the time, maintained that composition, or ordinantie, "was not a matter of patiently balancing the different shapes and contours of a scene until they pleased the eye. Composition was first and foremost the attempt to tell a story clearly and logically." Particularly relevant to Vermeer's essential mode on organizing the appearance of his interiors was de Lairesse's warning that the meaning and emotional power of a painting would be swamped by the extraneous details.

Another concept which de Lairesse associated with composition was "probability," in Dutch, waarschynelykheid. "Probability is the most important thing to bear in mind when composing a picture." He adds that "one must make it evident not only in the general disposition, but also in each particular object, and attentively reject things which are in conflict with it." There is however, no mention in de Lairesse's text of what is commonly referred conceived as formal compositional balance, or design, which involves the appropriate distribution and balance of light and dark masses in in size, shape and position.

An unidentified object

Art historians have scrutinized Vermeer's paintings for decades, meticulously examining every millimeter, in the quest for hidden details that might illuminate his work. Surprisingly, no one has hitherto taken note of the patch of wall to the right of the lady's chair, which terminates conspicuously high on the picture plane, beyond where the wall would naturally meet the floor. This anomaly likely implies the presence of an object flush against the wall, an object yet unidentified. Until recently, even the finest digital images failed to divulge any detail in this area, presenting merely a uniform expanse of dark paint. However, with the advent of ultra-high-resolution digital cameras, the painting has been re-photographed, revealing a new level of clarity. Upon close examination, the supposedly vacant space discloses faint but discernible brushstrokes, deliberately applied. These strokes seem to intimate the decorative features of an object, perhaps a box or storage chest. It stands to reason that Vermeer aimed to depict an object familiar to his contemporaries, but one that has since faded from our comprehension over time.

Letters: shaping commerce, minds and hearts

During the 17th century in the Netherlands, letter writing held immense significance and played a pivotal role in shaping communication, culture and society, bolstered by a remarkable surge in economic, artistic and cultural developments within the Dutch Republic. Amidst this backdrop, the act of letter writing emerged as a powerful and multifaceted medium that influenced various aspects of daily life.

A Lady Receiving a Letter
Gabriel Metsu
c. 1658
Oil on wood panel, 25.7 x 24.4 cm.
Timken Museum of Art, San Diego

Letter writing served as a vital connection between individuals separated by geographical distances. It provided a means for people to maintain bonds with family, friends, and acquaintances, bridging the gap created by physical space. In an era devoid of instant communication, letters became the threads that linked hearts and minds. Letters became tools for conducting business affairs, enabling merchants and traders to communicate orders, negotiate deals and stay informed about market trends.

Beyond commerce, the 17th-century Netherlands was a fertile ground for cultural and intellectual growth. Letters became conduits for the exchange of ideas, fostering creative innovation, scientific inquiry, and philosophical discourse. Intellectuals, artists, and thinkers engaged in written correspondence to share thoughts, engage in debates, and collaborate on diverse projects. As literacy rates increased, more individuals were able to engage in both writing and reading letters.

The significance of letter writing led to the emergence of manuals and guides designed to teach the art of composing effective letters. This democratization of letter writing transcended social classes, enabling diverse segments of society to participate in the practice. These resources provided templates, advice on writing style, and guidelines for observing proper etiquette in correspondence. As a result, individuals became adept at crafting meaningful and impactful letters.

The act of letter writing in this era involved the careful process of handwriting on paper using quills and ink. Letters typically followed a structured format, comprising a formal opening, the main body of the letter, and a closing sentiment. Once written, letters were often folded and sealed with wax or a signet ring before being sent on their way.

Just as e-mail now dominates written communication, in the 17th century the writing of personal letters became widespread and fashionable. Although letters had long existed, the notion that they could convey private feelings and emotions suddenly captured the popular imagination and transformed personal communication. Leading painters like Gerard ter Borch, Gabriel Metsu, Frans van Mieris, Pieter de Hooch and, of course, Vermeer made the letter a central feature of theirscenes of everyday life, defining the subject and creating images that would influence generations of painters to come.