The Stream and the Torrent – The Curious Case of Jan Torrentius and the Followers of The Rosy
Brian Howell
2014
Limited to 82 numbered copies
http://www.zagava.de/?post_type=books&p=277
"Having been rescued from prison and torture in Haarlem, as of 1632 Torrentius is confined to a secret chamber in White Hall to be the King's painter. He is not allowed to go out except at night and the early morning and must show a special pass to the guards. After making the acquaintance of a fellow Dutch painter one morning, Simon, he visits him and his wife, who reminds him of one of his many amours in Holland. Later, King Charles asks him to do a portrait of himself and his wife."
So begins a fascinating novel of history, magic and moral terror. A grand oeuvre in the tradition of Leo Perutz.
Vermeer's Christ in the House of Martha and Mary Goes on World Tour
Vermeer's Christ in the House of Martha and Mary will form part of a touring exhibition of America and Australia and will return to the Scottish National Gallery in February of 2016.
Botticelli to Braque: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland
Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth Texas
June 28-September 20, 2015
The Greats: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland
The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
October 24, 2015–February 14, 2016
Vermeer's Astronomer Travels to Japan
Louvre Museum: Genre Painting - Scenes from Daily Life
The National Art Center, Tokyo
February 21–June 1, 2015
From the museum website:
Genre painting refers to works that deal with the subject of everyday life. This exhibition, made up of 83 works that were carefully selected from the Musée du Louvre's massive collection, traces the development of genre painting across four centuries, from the Renaissance to the mid-19th century.
In addition to Vermeer's Astronomer, which will be shown in Japan for the first time, the exhibition presents works by prominent painters from every era and region including Titian, Rembrandt, Murillo, Watteau, Chardin and Millet, allowing viewers to enjoy the diverse charms of genre painting.
Vermeer-Related Lecture
Lunch Hour Lecture: Vermeer's Camera Obscura and Tim's Vermeer
Philip Steadman
Darwin Lecture Theatre, Darwin Building, London
March 5, 2015
Price: free
contact: +44 (0)20 3108 3841 | events@ucl.ac.uk
http://events.ucl.ac.uk/event/event:vi9-i3a4g43z-yedit6/lunch-hour-lecture-vermeers-camera-and-tims-vermeer
In 2001, Philip Steadman published Vermeer's Camera, a book that offered new evidence that the great Dutch painter relied on optical methods. An American video engineer Tim Jenison read the book and, believing he could take the argument further, proposed a simple arrangement of lens and mirrors that Vermeer might have employed. Jenison used this setup to paint a version of The Music Lesson in the Queen's collection. The process was filmed for the Oscar-shortlisted documentary Tim's Vermeer, released in 2014. Jenison's method throws more light, literally, on how Vermeer could have achieved his distinctively "photographic" tonal effects.
The lecture will be streamed live online and recorded for YouTube or downloaded.
Vermeer-Related Lecture
Milton Esterow: Rediscoveries in Art
Milton Esterow
March 25, 2015 | 7 p.m.
Location:
Lexington Avenue at 92nd St
Warburg Lounge
Price:
from $30.00
http://www.92y.org/Event/Milton-Esterow-Rediscoveries-in-Art.aspx
From the 92/Y website:
It seems unimaginable now, but the works of Piero della Francesca and Vermeer were forgotten and neglected for longer than they have been admired. No other great painter has been overlooked for such a long time as Botticelli. Hardly anyone paid much attention to Frans Hals and Giotto for many years. Why have tastes in art have been changing since art first came into being? Milton Esterow, former publisher of ARTnews, gives a fascinating perspective.
Vermeer Lecture
Eye of the Beholder: Johannes Vermeer, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, and the Reinvention of Seeing
Laura Snyder
1 Session: Wednesday, April 8 | 7:00–8:30 p.m.
location: The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, 125 Arborway, Boston, MA 02130, Hunnewell Building
Fee $5 member, $10 nonmember Students: email to register for free.
From the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University website:
"See for yourself!" was the clarion call of the 1600s. Scientists peered at nature through microscopes and telescopes, making the discoveries in astronomy, physics, chemistry and anatomy that ignited the Scientific Revolution. Artists investigated nature with lenses, mirrors and camera obscuras, creating extraordinarily detailed paintings of flowers and insects, and scenes filled with realistic effects of light, shadow and color. By extending the reach of sight the new optical instruments prompted the realization that there is more than meets the eye. But they also raised questions about how we see and what it means to see. In answering these questions, scientists and artists in Delft changed how we perceive the world. Author of The Philosophical Breakfast Club, a Scientific American Notable Book, Laura Snyder returns to the Arboretum to share her latest book, Eye of the Beholder, in which she pairs painter with natural philosopher to explain the revelatory ways of seeing in the seventeenth century.
Fee:
$5 member, $10 nonmember Students: Email to register for free.
Exhibition of Three Vermeer Paintings in Budapest
Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age
Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest
31 October, 2014–15 February, 2015
Rembrandt and the Painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a large-scale exhibition to run in the Museum of Fine Arts from 1 November surveys the period of seventeenth-century Dutch art, one of the golden ages of European culture. The exhibition is built around Rembrandt, the greatest master of the period, by whom 20 masterpieces will be on display. The exhibition will showcase over 170 works by some 100 painters, of which 40 originate from the Museum of Fine Arts' rich Dutch collection and 130 paintings will be contributed by private and public collections, with the most important loaning institutions including the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the National Museum in Stockholm, the Louvre in Paris, the National Gallery in London, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Metropolitan in New York, the Uffizi in Florence and the Prado in Madrid. A further sensation of the exhibition is that in addition to the significant number of works by Rembrandt, including the painting known as his earliest and his last self-portrait.
Visitors can also view three works by Vermeer: The Astronomer, The Geographer and The Allegory of Faith.
Dedicated museum page:
http://www.szepmuveszeti.hu/exhibitions/rembrandt-and-the-painting-of-the-dutch-golden-age-1427
Exhibition of Three Vermeer Paintings in Budapest
REMBRANDT AND THE DUTCH GOLDEN AGE
Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest
31 October, 2014–15 February, 2015
Rembrandt and the Painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a large-scale exhibition to run in the Museum of Fine Arts from 1 November surveys the period of seventeenth-century Dutch art, one of the golden ages of European culture. The exhibition is built around Rembrandt, the greatest master of the period, by whom 20 masterpieces will be on display. The exhibition will showcase over 170 works by some 100 painters, of which 40 originate from the Museum of Fine Arts' rich Dutch collection and 130 paintings will be contributed by private and public collections, with the most important loaning institutions including the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the National Museum in Stockholm, the Louvre in Paris, the National Gallery in London, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Metropolitan in New York, the Uffizi in Florence and the Prado in Madrid. A further sensation of the exhibition is that in addition to the significant number of works by Rembrandt, including the painting known as his earliest and his last self-portrait.
Visitors can also view three works by Vermeer: The Astronomer, The Geographer and The Allegory of Faith.
Click here for museum page:
http://www.szepmuveszeti.hu/exhibitions/rembrandt-and-the-painting-of-the-dutch-golden-age-1427
Vermeer Inspired Poetry and Memoir
Vermeer in Hell
by Michael White
2013
https://amzn.to/3PmAm7I
From publisher's website:
Through the paintings of Vermeer, Michael White explores new landscapes and transforms familiar ones in this extraordinary new collection of poems. This captivating masterwork transports us across eras and continents, from Confederate lynchings to the bombing of Dresden, through its lyrical inhabitations of some of Vermeer's most revered paintings, each one magically described and renewed. More than mere ekphrasis, Michael White explores the transformative possibilities of great art in his fourth collection.
rReviews:
"Vermeer in Hell is Michael White's museum of ghosts and shades, of narratives woven masterfully out of the personal and historical alike—out of the lived, the envisioned, the loved, and the terrible. Rarely have I felt the ekphrastic to be as dramatic as in White's tour through the portraits of Vermeer, with its history of fiery damages, wars and afflictions, but also its own depiction of 'love's face as it is.' Out of Michael White's vision, each poem achieves for us the delicacy and durability of Vermeer's own art."
—David Baker
"Nearly every one of Michael White's new poems is the equivalent of a quiet stroll through a blazing fire, igniting the reader's imagination. His insights are frightening and comforting at the same time, his craft allowing for the most surprising and thrilling of associations. Vermeer in Hell is a collection that belongs in the room with all of the traditions of our language's poetry, but it brings something completely original to us, too. It is not an overstatement to call this poetry Genius."
—Laura Kasischke
"In these elegant, powerful poems, Michael White pays homage to a great painter while engaging social realities that affect us all. They are brave, beautiful poems linked by authentic vision and a sensitive, educated ear."
—Sam Hamill
Travels in Vermeer: A Memoir
by Michael White
2015
https://amzn.to/3PmC0X9
from the publisher's webpage:
In the midst of a bad divorce, the poet Michael White unexpectedly discovers the consoling power of Johannes Vermeer's radiant vision. Over the course of a year, he travels to Amsterdam, The Hague, Delft, Washington D.C., New York, and London to view twenty-four paintings, including nearly all of Vermeer's major work.
"A certain chain of events has left me open, on a startlingly deep level, to Vermeer's gaze, to his meditation on our place on earth," White writes.
Part travelogue, part soul-searching investigation into romantic love and intimate discourse on art, this erudite and lyrical memoir encompasses the author's past—his difficult youth, stint in the Navy, alcoholism and the early death of his first wife—and ends with his finding grace and transformation through deeply affecting encounters with the paintings of Vermeer, an artist obsessed with romance and the inner life, who has captivated millions, from the seventeenth century until now.
Reviews:
"All the sorrow of love is compressed into White's memoir. But so, too, is all the consolation of art. Nothing I've read...suggests so eloquently what [Vermeer's paintings] hold for a contemporary viewer…Figures it took a poet to get it this beautifully, thrillingly right."
— Peter Trachtenberg
"[Travels in Vermeer] touches on the mysteries of seduction, loss and the artistic impulse. It shows how time can be interrupted."
—Clyde Edgerton
"This book is a treasure and a guide. It is a type of healing for the intellect and the heart."
—Rebecca Lee
About the author:
Michael White is the author of four collections of poetry and a memoir, Travels in Vermeer (Persea 2015), and has published widely in respected periodicals, including The Paris Review, The New Republic, The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Western Humanities Review, and the Best American Poetry. White teaches poetry and is presently chair of the Creative Writing department at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington.
Publisher's webpage:
https://amzn.to/3PmAm7I
Vermeer Inspired Poetry and Memoir
Vermeer in Hell
by Michael White
2013
https://amzn.to/3PmAm7I
From publisher's website:
Through the paintings of Vermeer, Michael White explores new landscapes and transforms familiar ones in this extraordinary new collection of poems. This captivating masterwork transports us across eras and continents, from Confederate lynchings to the bombing of Dresden, through its lyrical inhabitations of some of Vermeer's most revered paintings, each one magically described and renewed. More than mere ekphrasis, Michael White explores the transformative possibilities of great art in his fourth collection.
Reviews:
"Vermeer in Hell is Michael White's museum of ghosts and shades, of narratives woven masterfully out of the personal and historical alike—out of the lived, the envisioned, the loved, and the terrible. Rarely have I felt the ekphrastic to be as dramatic as in White's tour through the portraits of Vermeer, with its history of fiery damages, wars and afflictions, but also its own depiction of 'love's face as it is.' Out of Michael White's vision, each poem achieves for us the delicacy and durability of Vermeer's own art."
—David Baker
"Nearly every one of Michael White's new poems is the equivalent of a quiet stroll through a blazing fire, igniting the reader's imagination. His insights are frightening and comforting at the same time, his craft allowing for the most surprising and thrilling of associations. Vermeer in Hell is a collection that belongs in the room with all of the traditions of our language's poetry, but it brings something completely original to us, too. It is not an overstatement to call this poetry Genius."
—Laura Kasischke
"In these elegant, powerful poems, Michael White pays homage to a great painter while engaging social realities that affect us all. They are brave, beautiful poems linked by authentic vision and a sensitive, educated ear."
—Sam Hamill
Travels in Vermeer: A Memoir
by Michael White
2015
https://amzn.to/3PmC0X9
from the publisher's webpage:
In the midst of a bad divorce, the poet Michael White unexpectedly discovers the consoling power of Johannes Vermeer's radiant vision. Over the course of a year, he travels to Amsterdam, The Hague, Delft, Washington D.C., New York, and London to view twenty-four paintings, including nearly all of Vermeer's major work.
"A certain chain of events has left me open, on a startlingly deep level, to Vermeer's gaze, to his meditation on our place on earth," White writes.
Part travelogue, part soul-searching investigation into romantic love and intimate discourse on art, this erudite and lyrical memoir encompasses the author's past—his difficult youth, stint in the Navy, alcoholism and the early death of his first wife—and ends with his finding grace and transformation through deeply affecting encounters with the paintings of Vermeer, an artist obsessed with romance and the inner life, who has captivated millions, from the seventeenth century until now.
Reviews:
"All the sorrow of love is compressed into White's memoir. But so, too, is all the consolation of art. Nothing I've read...suggests so eloquently what [Vermeer's paintings] hold for a contemporary viewer…Figures it took a poet to get it this beautifully, thrillingly right."
— Peter Trachtenberg
"[Travels in Vermeer] touches on the mysteries of seduction, loss and the artistic impulse. It shows how time can be interrupted."
—Clyde Edgerton
"This book is a treasure and a guide. It is a type of healing for the intellect and the heart."
—Rebecca Lee
About the author:
Michael White is the author of four collections of poetry and a memoir, Travels in Vermeer (Persea 2015), and has published widely in respected periodicals, including The Paris Review, The New Republic, The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Western Humanities Review, and the Best American Poetry. White teaches poetry and is presently chair of the Creative Writing department at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington.
Publisher's webpage:
https://amzn.to/3PmAm7I
Vermeer-Related Exhibition
Small Treasures: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals and their Contemporaries
October 12, 2014–January 4, 2015
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC
From the museum website:
Small Treasures: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals and Their Contemporaries represents the first exhibition to focus exclusively on small-format seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish figure paintings. Many of the century's greatest masters contributed to this tradition: pictures by Anthony van Dyck, Adriaen Brouwer, David Teniers, Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Jan Steen, Gerard ter Borch, Gerrit Dou, and Frans van Mieris are featured in the exhibition. Drawn primarily from public and private collections throughout the United States, the works in Small Treasures showcase the quality, skill and diversity these artists brought to their small miracles in paint. Viewers encounter various portrait formats and types, including group and individual portraits, self-portraits, allegorical portraits, and tronies, a Dutch word for faces or character studies. A handful of genre and history paintings are also shown in order to provide a larger context for the portraits. A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition, featuring all of the exhibited paintings reproduced in full size.
The exhibition includes:
Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Red Hat (c. 1665–1667)
Johannes Vermeer, A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals (c. 1670), 9 7/8 x 7 7/8 in.
Adriaen Brouwer, Youth Making a Face (c. 1632–35), 5 3/8 x 4 1/8 in.
Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait of an Old Man with a Beard (c. 1630)
Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of Nicholas Rockox (1636), 6 in. diam. (round)
Saint Praxedis Sold for $10,687,160
The London-based auction house Christie's reported via a Twitter feed that the Saint Praxedis (101.6 x 82.6 cm.) was sold on Tuesday, July 8 for $10,687,160 (£6,242,500). This figure barely higher that than the auction house's lowest estimate of $10,284,000 but considerably lower than the upper estimate of $13,712,000. The painting was sold after a few bids to an Asiatic client.
The low price paid for the Saint Praxedis suggests that the results of the scientific analysis were less than convincing and that it was bought in hopes that future critical or scientific investigations will strengthened its attribution.
In 2004, Sotheby's sold the minuscule A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals (25.2 x 20 cm.) for $42 million (£16.2 million) a price five times greater than the auction house's initial estimate. Previous to the two sales, the authorship of both works had been for debated for decades. On occasion of the sales the picture were proposed as authentic Vermeer's largely the basis of scientific analysis spearheaded, in both cases, by the respective auction houses.
Before the painting was sold, Christie's reported that after having examined the picture the conservator Libby Sheldon said that although no firm conclusion about the exact date of the picture's Vermeer signature could be reached, she believed that it is nonetheless "old." In 1998, Jørgen Wadum, then the chief curator of the Mauritshuis, stated that the signature had been added after the painting had been completed. Tests carried out by the Rijksmuseum show that the lead component of the lead white pigment extracted from the picture derives from a northern European source making it improbable that the picture was painted in southern Europe, as some critics had speculated. In addition, Christie's claims that the lead white used to paint the Saint Praxedis is from the same "batch" used to painted the Diana and her Companions, a secure work by Vermeer.
However, since the results of these tests have not been published, for the moment it is not clear what meant by the term "batch." Many pigments used by artists, including white lead, were already being produced on a large scale with the products being delivered to the retail dealers. There exists no evidence that might indicate if Vermeer prepared his own paints or bought them through one or other commercial venues.
Mauritshuis Opening on 27 June, 2014
The Mauritshuis will open its doors on Friday 27 June, 2014 after a two-year renovation.
The world famous painting collection, including three paintings by Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring, View of Delft and Diana and her Companions, will once again be displayed in the fully renovated and expanded Mauritshuis. After a celebratory opening, the museum will be open to the public for visit free of charge until midnight. The renovated Mauritshuis doubles its surface with an underground expansion into a building on the other side of the street. Still, little about the character of the museum will change. The appearance and unique homely atmosphere are preserved, thanks to the design of Hans van Heeswijk architects. The most obvious change is the relocation of the main entrance to the forecourt. Visitors will descend via the stairs or lift to a light foyer, connecting 'old' and 'new' underground. The new part, the Royal Dutch Shell Wing, will house the exhibition space, the brasserie and the museum shop. Furthermore, it will accommodate the educational Art Workshop, a library, and event rooms.
The museum has also renovated its website and has added new high-resolution image is their Vermeer's paintings which can be viewed with a zoom feature or downloaded to one's hard disk. The downloadable images are lower resolution than the zoom versions.
Zoom features:
Girl with a Pearl Earring
View of Delft
Diana and her Companions
Downloads:
Girl with a Pearl Earring
View of Delft
Diana and her Companions
Mauritshuis
Korte Vijverberg 8
2513 AB The Hague
P.O. Box 536
2501 CM The Hague
Another New Vermeer?
On June 6, Christie's announced that it was declaring the Saint Praxedis a Vermeer. According to Henry Pettifer, the head of Old Master paintings at Christie's, after isotope analysis tests carried out by scientists at Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum and Free University, it was found that the lead white of the painting was a precise match for that used in another early Vermeer, Diana and her Companions—"So precise as to suggest that the same batch of paint could have been used." He stated that the research, including an analysis of the date and signature on the painting, amounted to "a compelling endorsement" of Vermeer's authorship. In the event that the painting is accepted by art scholars as an authentic Vermeer, it will become the second once-doubted painting in ten years to be accepted into the painter's thin oeuvre largely on the basis of technical analysis.
The auction house excepts the work could fetch about $13 million when it is auction in early July. The work is part of the collection of Barbara Piasecka Johnson, a Polish-born art-lover who amassed a huge trove of art after marrying Johnson & Johnson heir J. Seward Johnson. Piasecka died last year.
Click here to access the Christie's PDF online catalogue entry for the Saint Praxedis for art which contains further art historical and technical information.
Old Master & British Paintings Evening Sale
Christie's
8 King Street, St. James's, London - Tuesday, July 8, 2014 at 6:00 pm
Viewings:
Saturday, July 5 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Sunday, July 6 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Monday, July 7 9:00 a.m.–4:30 p.m.
Tuesday, July 8 9:00 a.m.–3:30 p
The Painting
The painting is believed to be a copy of a work by Felice Ficherelli (1605–1669 ?) from about 1640–1645, now in the Collection Fergnani in Ferrara. It represents the early Roman martyr, Saint Praxedis or Praxedes, who squeezes a martyr's blood from a sponge into an ornate vessel. The most obvious difference between the copy and the original is that there is no crucifix in the Ferrara work.
Critical Fortunes
The painting's provenance before the mid-twentieth century is unknown. The collector Jacob Reder bought it at a minor auction house in New York in 1943. The painting was first publicly viewed in 1969 when it was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a work by Felice Ficherelli in the exhibition Florentine Baroque Art from American Collections, no. 39. Vermeer's signature in the lower left was noted in the catalogue after it had been examined by Ted Rousseau and members of the conservation department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
After the work appeared in New York exhibition, it was first published (1969) as a Vermeer by Michael Kitson, an art historian with the University of London. Kitson believed the signature was integral with the paint surface and "the form of the signature corresponds exactly to those on Vermeer's early works, particularly the Girl Asleep." Kitson likened the Saint Praxedis copy to Vermeer's Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, for its "breadth of form and handling and a similar gravity (though not sickness) of mood."*
In 1986, Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. enthusiastically embraced the work as an authentic Vermeer** the citing the stylistic and technical similarities with the two early Vermeers and the essentially Dutch character of the modeling of Saint Praxedis' face, which he compared to the down turned head of Vermeer's Maid Asleep. Wheelock noted two signatures. One, at the lower left was the name "Meer" and the date "1655." On the suggestion of Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann, Wheelock advanced that the other inscription contained the word "Meer," followed by the letter "N," the letter "R," then two lower case "o's." Wheelock holds that both the signatures and the date are integral to the paint surface and that the second could be interpreted as: "[Ver]Meer N[aar] R[ip] o [s] o" or "Vermeer after Riposo," Ficherelli's Italian nickname (Repose).
However, on the occasion of the 1994–1995 Vermeer Washington/The Hague exhibition where the work was shown by Wheelock as the earliest known painting by Vermeer, its authenticity was seriously contested by a number of art historians and conservators. Jørgen Wadum, then the chief curator of the Mauritshuis, firmly stated that the "Meer 1655" inscription had been added after the painting had been completed. Contrary to Wheelock, he believed the brushwork of Saint Praxedis had nothing to do with the brushwork of either the Diana and her Companions or the Christ in the House of Mary and Martha. He also noted that no smalt, a dull blue pigment which is now obsolete, had been detected in the Saint Praxedis while both the Christ in the House of Mary and Martha and the Diana and her Companions had significant amounts of smalt.
When Saint Praxedis was examined by Marten Jan Bok, a specialist on the seventeenth-century Utrecht painter Johannes van der Meer, he was unable even to see the second inscription, and in any case, he wrote "nowhere in seventeenth-century Dutch painting will you find such an inscription on a copied painting."
Ben Broos found that Wheelock's interpretation of the signature as "Meer naar Riposo" was "wishful thinking" at best. "In my opinion, Saint Praxedis is the latest wrongly attributed Vermeer of the caliber of Van der Laan and Vrel." Other experts such as Albert Blankert, Gregor J. M. Weber, and the National Gallery in London's Christopher Brown have arrived at similar conclusions.
In 2002, Jon Boone wrote, "In looking at Saint Praxedis one does have a hard time understanding its attribution to Vermeer. It is a second-rate copy of a mediocre painting by an undistinguished artist, with certain features—such as the awkward wrap-around hands—antithetical to Vermeer's sensibility as well as his draftsmanship. While the face itself is beautiful, certainly more charming than that of the original, it is still a facsimile face, a close copy of the source." And further: "The Saint Praxedis attribution is severely strained, failing the standard of Ockham's razor: The simplest explanation covering all the facts of the case is that the painting is a copy executed either by the original painter, Ficherelli, in Florence, or by another artist in Ficherelli's circle." ***
In fact, there is no evidence that Vermeer had ever visited Italy or that the Ficherelli's original, or an eventual copy, had ever traveled outside the country.
Ivan Gaskell had written earlier "that as a result of, first, examining the painting while exhibited in Washington (scarcely optimal conditions) in conjunction with Vermeer's two early history paintings, secondly, of discussing the work with specialist colleagues, and, thirdly, reviewing the published arguments, I feel unable to accept an unqualified attribution of Saint Praxedis to Vermeer."
In his 2008 complete catalogue of Vermeer's painting, Walter Liedtke does not even mention the Saint Praxedis, while in 2009 he wrote "the repetition is probably by the Florentine painter [Ficherelli] himself." ****
* KITSON, Michael. "Florentine Baroque Art in New York." Burlington Magazine, Vol. 111, No. 795 (Jun., 1969). 409–410.
** WHEELOCK, Arthur K. Jr. "'St. Praxedis': New Light on the Early Career of Vermeer." Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 7, No. 14 (1986). 71–89.
*** BOONE, Jon. "Saint Praxedis: Missing the Mark," Essential Vermeer, 2002. http://www.essentialvermeer.com/saint_praxedis.html
**** LIEDTKE, Walter: Vermeer: The Milkmaid. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 2009. note 5, 23.
New Vermeer-Related Publication
Holland's Golden Age in America: Collecting the Art of Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals
Esmée Quodbach
ed. New York (The Frick Collection) and University Park (The Pennsylvania State University Press)
2014
From the Pennsylvania State University Press website:
Americans have long had a taste for the art and culture of Holland's Golden Age. As a result, the United States can boast extraordinary holdings of Dutch paintings. Celebrated masters such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Johannes Vermeer, and Frans Hals are exceptionally well represented, but many fine paintings by their contemporaries can be found as well. In this groundbreaking volume, fourteen noted American and Dutch scholars examine the allure of seventeenth-century Dutch painting to Americans over the past centuries. The authors of Holland's Golden Age in America explain in lively detail why and how American collectors as well as museums turned to the Dutch masters to enrich their collections. They examine the role played by Dutch settlers in colonial America and their descendants, the evolution of American appreciation of the Dutch school, the circumstances that led to the Dutch school swiftly becoming one of the most coveted national schools of painting, and, finally, the market for Dutch pictures today. Richly illustrated, this volume is an invaluable contribution to the scholarship on the collecting history of Dutch art in America, and it is certain to inspire further research.
In addition to the editor, the contributors are Ronni Baer, Quentin Buvelot, Lloyd DeWitt, Peter Hecht, Lance Humphries, Walter Liedtke, Louisa Wood Ruby, Catherine B. Scallen, Annette Stott, Peter C. Sutton, Dennis P. Weller, Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., and Anne T. Woollett.
This book provides answers for anyone who has ever wondered why there are so many great Dutch paintings in U.S. collections. Essays by leading curators and scholars draw on the history of art, as well as an understanding of cultural, economic and political conditions, to illuminate the American taste for seventeenth-century Dutch painting.
— Emilie Gordenker, Director, Mauritshuis, The HagueDrawing on the experience and insights of many of her colleagues in museums and the academy, Esmée Quodbach brings us an impressively broad overview of the early collectors of Dutch art in America. This essential volume provides illuminating context for major figures such as J. P. Morgan and welcomes unsung heroes such as Robert Gilmor, Jr., onto this stage, but also lifts the curtain on early colonial as well as contemporary collections. These varied accounts are spiked with color, drama and highlights, including the story of the wealthy collector who has to ask, "Who is Vermeer?"
— David de Witt, Bader Curator of European Art, Queen's University
Esmée Quodbach is Assistant Director of the Center for the History of Collecting at The Frick Collection and Frick Art Reference Library in New York.
http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-06201-3.html
CONTENTS
Foreword
— Esmée Quodbach
Introduction: A Taste for Dutch Art
— Peter C. Sutton
PART I
The Early Years: The Formation of America's Taste for Dutch Art
1. Pictures chiefly painted in oils, on board": Dutch Paintings in Colonial New York
— Louisa Wood Ruby
2. Robert Gilmor, Jr.'s "Rea" Dutch Paintings
— Lance Humphries
3. Collecting Old Dutch Masters: Originals, Interpretations, Copies and Reproductions
— Annette Stott
4. Wilhelm von Bode and Collecting in America
— Catherine B. Scallen
PART II
The Gilded Age: Great Collections and Collectors of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art
5. Golden Age Paintings in the Gilded Age: New York Collectors and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1870–1920
— Walter Liedtke
6. "They leave us as they find us, they never elevate": John G. Johnson and the Dutch Masters
— Lloyd DeWitt
7. Collecting Vermeer, 1887–1919
— Esmée Quodbach
8 Collecting Dutch Paintings in Boston
— Ronni Baer
9. The Dutch Painting Collection at the National Gallery of Art
— Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr.
PART III
The Twentieth Century: The Dissemination of Dutch Art Across America and the Dutch Reaction
10. The Passionate Eye of W. R. Valentiner: Shaping the Canon of Dutch Painting in America
—Dennis P. Weller
11. Unexpected Rivals for the Dutch: Competing with the Americans for Holland's National Heritage in Great Britain and Elsewhere
— Peter Hecht
12. Golden Opportunities: Collecting Rembrandt in Southern California
— Anne T. Woollett
13. Has the Great Age of Collecting Dutch Old Master Paintings Come to an End?
— Quentin Buvelot
National Gallery of Art Online Editions
From the NGA website:
Available for the first time on the National Gallery of Art website, NGA Online Editions presents the most current, in-depth information on the Gallery's collections by the world's leading art historians along with rich capabilities for exploring that information. A customized reading environment and toolkit for managing text and images are intended both to provide scholars with a useful workspace for research and to encourage the study and appreciation of art.
NGA Online Editions launches with Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century by Gallery curator Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and will ultimately document more than 5,000 paintings, sculptures and decorative arts in the nation's collection. Editions include an introduction by the curator, illustrated scholarly entries (each preceded by a short overview), artists' biographies, technical summaries, and a complement of rich media, educational materials, and appendices related to the featured collection. Formerly known as The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue (a printed series of authoritative volumes on the Gallery's permanent collections), NGA Online Editions puts this same detailed information—and more—at the fingertips of students, scholars and anyone eager to learn more about the treasures of the National Gallery of Art.
Here are the relative pages:
National Gallery of Art
Online Editions
http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/research/online-editions.html
Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century
http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/research/online-editions/17th-century-dutch-paintings.html
Johannes Vermeer
http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/artist-info.1951.html?artobj_artistId=1951&pageNumber=1
Is Vermeer's Stolen Concert Closer to Being Recovered?
At 1:24 a.m. of March 18, 1990, two thieves stole thirteen works of art from the Italianate mansion Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, including Vermeer's mid-career masterpiece, The Concert. None of the paintings have been recovered. In the years following the theft, most of the leads went cold. Billboards announcing the a $5,000,000 reward for information about the theft and the arrest if a Boston mob leaders suspected of having information on the heist yielded nothings. Until 2013.
On 19 March, 2013, on the 23rd anniversary of the crime, the FBI made the stunning announcement that they knew who was behind 1990 theft, but they did not supply names because the investigation was ongoing.
On May, 2013, Robert Gentile, 76, convicted of receiving stolen goods, carrying a deadly weapon in a motor vehicle and possession of illegal firearms, was arrested. Police suspected he knew something about the heist. Gentile denied knowing anything but failed a FBI polygraph test when asked if he knew anything about the Boston heist. Moreover, a police investigation in Gentile's house turned up a handwritten list of the stolen paintings, their estimated worth and a newspaper article about the heist a day after it happened.
And now, an FBI agent in charge of the investigation for the bureau says there are confirmed sightings of the missing artwork from credible sources. FBI Special Agent Geoff Kelly told MyFoxBoston.com, "We believe that over certain periods of time, this artwork has been spotted." Up until now, there were no official sightings of the artwork.
Two FBI informants told law enforcement that Carmello Merlino was planning to return Rembrandt's "The Storm on the Sea of Galilee" in the 1990s, to try to collect reward money. His plans were foiled when he was arrested for an aborted armored car heist, according to MyFoxBoston.com.
All about the theft of The Concert.
Vermeer Painting Recreated in Video
Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window
Video installation by Menno Otten
35 mm celluloid
From the film maker's website:
Johannes Vermeer's Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window has been recreated by filmmaker Menno Otten as a continuous picturesque loop, subtly evolving around Vermeer's masterpiece. Due to its duration and inconspicuous development the installation is seen as a still at first glance, only to reveal its true form in the following moments. In an elegant symbiosis between the expressive moment and dynamic movement a timeless masterpiece comes to life.
Only in the last century have the visual arts surpassed the limitations of 'mere' suggestions of movement. And yet the time-space continuum of cinematography hasn't diminished the expressive power of the single two-dimensional image. On the contrary, the introduction of motion into the visual arts made the decisive moment—the unique concurrence of both the dramatic and the visual highlight of an event (Cartier-Bresson, 1952)—even more compelling. Movement aroused our awareness of non-movement.
The artistic tension between movement and motionlessness is the essence of Living Paintings, an Inner Visions project in which the award-winning Dutch documentary maker and video artist Menno Otten literally sheds a new light on old master's paintings. Through video installations that recreate these icons and expose a time span that encloses their decisive moment, the paintings come to life. On the boundary of cinema and photography, the classical images enter the world of time and motion, in an attempt to unify the antithesis described by Bill Viola: "Film can embody time, something the Old Masters couldn't do."
See video fragment here:
http://vimeo.com/mennootten/girlreadingletter
A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals Exhibition at Philadelphia Museum of Art Extended to September 30
Vermeer's Young Woman Seated at the Virginals
Philadelphia Museuym of Art
October 26, 2013–September 30, 2014
From the museum website:
Vermeer's Young Woman Seated at the Virginal will be joined by two additional loans from the Leiden Collection: Frans Hals's Portrait of Samuel Ampzing and The Coat of Many Colors attributed to Rembrandt's pupil Gerbrand van den Eeckhout. All three paintings are on view in the galleries of European art 1500–1850 on the second floor, in the company of a selection of the Museum's own paintings from the Dutch Golden Age. The Museum possesses more than three hundred seventeenth-century Dutch paintings, the largest collection of its kind in North America.
For further in formation, click here.
Exhibition curator:
Christopher Atkins, Associate Curator of European Painting & Sculpture
Vermeer-Related Film
Vermeer and Music
In cinemas worldwide on October 10 & varying dates
The National Gallery, London, is offering a fresh look at one of the most startling and fascinating artists of all—Johannes Vermeer, painter of the famous Girl with a Pearl Earring. The National Gallery has chosen to focus on Vermeer's relationship with music. It is one of the most popular themes of Dutch painting and reveals an enormous amount about the sitter and the society they lived in. New research, revealed for the first time at this exhibition, shows how his technique and materials affected his works.
Tim Marlow goes beyond the exhibition to tell the entire story of Vermeer's life—and, in doing so, shows in fabulous HD detail many other of the artist's captivating works.
To book tickets go to the find a venue page.
Vermeer-Related Article
"MOST RARE WORKMEN": OPTICAL PRACTITIONERS IN EARLY
SEVENTEETH-CENTURY DELFT "
Huib J. Zuidervaart and Marlise Rijks
The British Journal for the History of Science, pp. 1–33,
March 2014
online article can be
accessed at:
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9202672&fileId
=S0007087414000181
Abstract:
A special interest in optics among various seventeenth-century painters living in the Dutch city of Delft has intrigued historians, including art historians, for a long time. Equally, the impressive career of the Delft microscopist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek has been studied by many historians of science. However, it has never been investigated who, at that time, had access to the mathematical and optical knowledge necessary for the impressive achievements of these Delft practitioners. We have tried to gain insight into Delft as a 'node' of optical knowledge by following the careers of three minor local figures in early seventeenth-century Delft. We argue that through their work, products, discussions in the vernacular and exchange of skills, rather than via learned publications, these practitioners constituted a foundation on which the later scientific and artistic achievements of other Delft citizens were built. Our Delft case demonstrates that these practitioners were not simple and isolated craftsmen; rather they were crucial components in a network of scholars, savants, painters and rich virtuosi. Decades before Vermeer made his masterworks, or Van Leeuwenhoek started his famous microscopic investigations, the intellectual atmosphere and artisanal knowledge in this city centered on optical topics.
Especially of interest is the authors' tie between three optical practitioners who lived in Delft simultaneously with Vermeer. One of them, Jacob Spoors, was in 1674 the notary of Vermeer and his mother-in-law Maria Thins. Another was an acquaintance of Spoors, the military engineer Johan van der Wyck, who made an optical device in Delft in 1654, most likely a camera obscura. A report about the demonstration in nearby The Hague has been preserved. Van der Wyck also made telescopes and microscopes and an apparatus that probably was a kind of perspective box. As a telescope maker he was preceded by Evert Harmansz Steenwyck, brother-in- law of the Leiden painter David Bailly and father of two Delft still-life painters: Harman and Pieter Steenwyck. The latter was familiar with Vermeer's father Reynier Jansz Vermeer, at a time when the young Vermeer was still living with his parents. According to the authors, this is the first real archival evidence that such a device existed in Delft during Vermeer's life.
Vermeer-Related Exhibition
The Myth of the Golden Age. From Vermeer to Rembrandt:
Masterpieces from the Mauritshuis
(La ragazza con l'orecchino di perla: Il mito della Golden Age Da Vermeer a Rembrandt Capolavori dal Mauritshuis)
Bologna, Palazzo Fava
February 8–May 25, 2014
Among the paintings going on exhibition are the Girl with a Pearl Earring and the Diana and her Companions by Johannes Vermeer and The Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius, neither of which will have been seen by Italian audiences in many years. The decision to organize a major international traveling exhibition of a select group of paintings from the museum's rich collection was prompted by the large-scale renovations to its premises, which will be finished in 2014. The exhibition is organized by Linea d'ombra.
Exhibition curators:
Marco Goldin
Emilie E.S. Gordenker
Quentin Buvelot
Ariane van Suchtelen
Lea van der Vinde
Vermeer-Related Lecture
"Silence in the Studio: Vermeer and Terborch"
Mariët Westermann
Washington College, Chestertown MD (Hotchkiss Recital Hall, Gibson Center for the Arts)
Wednesday, April 9 | 5 p.m.
From the Washington College website:
Celebrated art historian Mariët Westermann, vice president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, will explore the technical innovations by Dutch painters of the Golden Age such as Vermeer and Gerrit ter Borch in a lecture entitled "Silence in the Studio: Vermeer and Terborch." T he lecture will be given on the occasion of the 11th annual Janson-La Palme Distinguished Lecture in European Art History on the college campus.
A native of Holland, Westermann graduated magna cum laude from Williams College with a degree in history. She later completed her master's degree and Ph.D. in art history at NYU's Institute of Fine Arts and has written extensively on Dutch painting and Vermeer. Westermann is the author of several acclaimed books, including A Worldly Art: The Dutch Republic 1585–1718 (ranked a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times); The Amusements of Jan Steen: Comic Painting in the 17th Century; Rembrandt: Art and Ideas; and Anthropologies of Art. She also authored Johannes Vermeer 1632–1675 for the Rijksmuseum Dossiers series and served as guest curator of "Art and Home: Dutch Interiors in the Age of Rembrandt" at the Newark Museum and Denver Art Museum.
The lecture is free and open to the public.
Click here for Washington College event page.
Vermeer-Related Exhibition
Vermeer's A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals
Philadelphia Museum of Art
October 26, 2013–March 2014
From the museum website:
Vermeer's A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals will be joined by two additional loans from the Leiden Collection: Frans Hals's Portrait of Samuel Ampzing and The Coat of Many Colors attributed to Rembrandt's pupil Gerbrand van den Eeckhout. All three paintings are on view in the galleries of European art 1500–1850 on the second floor, in the company of a selection of the Museum's own paintings from the Dutch Golden Age. The Museum possesses more than three hundred seventeenth-century Dutch paintings, the largest collection of its kind in North America.
For further in formation, click here.
Exhibition curator:
Christopher Atkins, Associate Curator of European Painting & Sculpture
Vermeer-Related Study
From Perception to Paint: The Practical Use of the Camera Obscura in the Time of Vermeer
Jane Jelley
in Art and Perception
July 2013
There has been much debate as to whether Vermeer himself would have used any kind of optical aid in the execution of his paintings. The paintings themselves appear to show optical effects and distortions, seen only through a lens and not with the naked eye. Was Vermeer just influenced by the view through a camera, or did he transfer the projected images directly to his paintings?
The experiment shows a method that would have made transfers from a projection to a canvas a practical possibility, using readily available materials and contemporary technology. This technique not only solves the problems of the reversals of camera obscura images, but significantly, the resultant transfers from the lens show striking resonances with Vermeer's own underpainting, revealed by scientific analysis. This research also provides some answers about the use of particular materials in the seventeenth-century studio.
New Vermeer Publication
Woman in Blue Reading a Letter (Rijksmuseum publication)
by Gregor J.M. Weber
64 pages full-color, paperback, Dutch and English
2013
The hushed mood, the painstaking composition, the modulating blues, the suggestion of light–all these aspects make Vermeer's Woman in Blue (c. 1663) one of the great masterpieces of painting. Discover this Rijksmuseum highlight in a book by Vermeer expert Gregor Weber.
Click here to order.
Vermeer-Related Web Study
Vermeer and Technique
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/research/meaning-of-making/vermeer-and-technique/
Discover the techniques and materials behind four of Vermeer's music-themed paintings on display in the exhibition Vermeer and Music: The Art of Love and Leisure (26 June–8 September, 2013).
Illuminating and richly illustrated.
Topics include:
- Support and ground
- Infrared examination
- Vermeer's palette
- Binding medium
- Paint application
- Secrets of the studio
- Altered appearance of ultramarine
- Fading of yellow and red lake pigments
- Drying and paint defects
- Formation of lead and zinc soaps
From the National Gallery website:
The extended loan of Vermeer's Guitar Player from Kenwood House enabled National Gallery researchers to analyze the painting's materials and closely study the techniques used. The findings were compared with other late paintings by Vermeer in the National Gallery (A Lady Seated at a Virginal and A Lady Standing at a Virginal), and a slightly earlier work (The Music Lesson) kindly lent by the Royal Collection for the National Gallery's 2013 summer exhibition Vermeer and Music: The Art of Love and Leisure.
This project presented an opportunity for close visual examination and technical imaging of these works. In addition, a small number of paint samples obtained from each of these paintings in the 1960s and archived since that time at the Doerner Institut were kindly loaned for study. Techniques for the analysis of these samples, not available in the 1960s, scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray analysis (SEM-EDX) and attenuated total reflectance—Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy have now been undertaken. The aim has been to draw together information from current visual inspections, analytical evidence from the old paint samples, and the results of the analysis of a very small number of new samples which we have been able to take from our own paintings. The study has been directed to understanding the current condition of the paintings and how this may relate to the alteration of Vermeer's original painting materials and to conservation treatments undertaken in the past.
Vermeer-Related Publication
"Canvas Matches in Vermeer: A Case Study in the Fabric Analysis of Canvas Supports"
Metropolitan Museum Journal, vol. 47, 2012, pp. 99–106
by Walter Liedtke, C. Richard Johnson Jr. and Don H. Johnson
Article is downloadable at:
http://people.ece.cornell.edu/johnson/LiedtkeMMJ.pdf
For the past several years two American scientists, C. Richard Johnson Jr. and Don H. Johnson, "have developed computer algorithms that allow an analysis of canvas weaves that is more precise than traditional methods. They have digitally mapped canvases used by European artists ranging in date from the 1450s to Vincent van Gogh's pictures of 1888–90. The results so far have been variously revealing for those artists and for Velázquez, Vermeer, Monet, Renoir, Gauguin and Matisse.
In the case of Johannes Vermeer, twenty nine of his canvases have been digitally mapped to date, out of the thirty-six paintings by him (two of which are on wood) that are generally accepted by scholars. The two scientists discovered that "three canvas weave matches were found, with three different implications: a question of authenticity; another concerning chronology; and the hypothesis that two pictures were intended by the artist as a pair. The results of the analysis suggest that the canvas of The Lacemaker originated from the same bolt of canvas as that of the recently reattributed Young Woman Seated at a Virginal (not to be confused with the London work of Vermeer by a similar title). Another weave match found in Vermeer's oeuvre is between two genre paintings of identical size, Young Woman Standing at a Virginal and Young Woman Seated at a Virginal, both in the National Gallery, London.
Walter Liedtke, the curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Vermeer expert, furnishes an art historical reading of the investigation.
Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring in the United States in 2013 and in Bologna, Italy, 2014
Girl with a Pearl Earring: Dutch Paintings from the Mauritshuis (35 works)
de Young - San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts
San Francisco
January 26–June 2, 2013
Girl with a Pearl Earring: Dutch Paintings from the Mauritshuis (35 works)
High Museum of Art
Atlanta
June 22–September 29, 2013
Vermeer, Rembrandt and Hals: Masterpieces of Dutch Painting from the Mauritshuis
(10 works)
Frick Collection
New York
October 22, 2013–January 19, 2014
La ragazza con l'orecchino di perla: Il mito della Golden Age. Da Vermeer a Rembrandt capolavori dal Mauritshuis
8 February –May 25, 2014
Bologna, Italy (Palazzo Fava)
Press release:
Masterpieces from the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis will be exhibited at three museums in the United States from January 2013 to January 2014. The Mauritshuis has agreed to send more than thirty works to the de Young/Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta; the tour will finish with a smaller selection at The Frick Collection in New York. Among the paintings going on tour are the famous Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer and The Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius, neither of which will have been seen by American audiences in ten years. Furthermore, this is the first occasion since the mid-1980s that a substantial group of works from the Mauritshuis has come to the United States. The decision to organize a major international traveling exhibition of a select group of paintings from the museum's rich collection was prompted by the large-scale renovations to its premises, which will be finished in 2014.
Vermeer Exhibition in London
Vermeer and Music: Love and Leisure in the Dutch Golden Age
Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery of Art, London
June 26–September 8, 2013
Admission free
This exhibition explores the concept of music as a pastime of the elite in the northern Netherlands during the seventeenth century. Vermeer and Music: Love and Leisure in the Dutch Golden Age will bring together the National Gallery's two paintings by Vermeer, A Lady Standing at a Virginal and A Lady Seated at a Virginal, The Royal Collection's Music Lesson, A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals (attributed to Johannes Vermeer) and The Guitar Player, on exceptional loan from the Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood House.
The exhibition aims to enhance viewers' appreciation of these beautiful and evocative paintings by Vermeer and his contemporaries by juxtaposing them with musical instruments and songbooks of the period. Visitors will be able to compare seventeenth-century virginals, guitars, lutes and other instruments with their painted representations to judge the accuracy of representation and what liberties the painter might have taken to enhance the visual or symbolic appeal of his work. In seventeenth-century Dutch paintings, music often figured as a metaphor for harmony, a symbol of transience or, depending on the type of music being performed, an indicator of one's education and position in society. Musical instruments and songbooks were also included as attributes in elegant portraits to suggest that the sitter was accomplished in this area.
Vermeer-Related Film
In Tim's Vermeer, Tim Jenison, a Texas-based inventor and giant of video and post-production software for home computers, (Video Toaster, LightWave, TriCaster) attempts to solve one of the greatest mysteries in European art: How did the seventeenth- century Dutch master Johannes Vermeer manage to paint so realistically—150 years before the invention of photography?
In the search of an answer, Jenison began by working off of the theories set forth in David Hockney's Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters and Philip Steadman's Vermeer's Camera: Uncovering the Truth behind the Masterpieces, both of which allege that Vermeer employed an optical device, the camera obscura, as an aid to his painting. Fascinated by the theories of Hockney and Steadman (both outsiders to the art history enclave), Jenison built his own camera obscura but found something was amiss. He immediately came to suspect that not only had Vermeer used some sort of optical device to trace the drawing of his motif onto his canvas (as Steadman had for all practical purposes proved) but must have used it to register the colors and tonal values of his paintings which have been long admired for their uncanny precision, apparently out of reach of his contemporaries.
While viewing in person Vermeer's Music Lesson, perhaps the artist's most "optically based" work, Jenison, a video engineer well versed in analyzing images scientifically, became firmly convinced that the work presents optical information that cannot be gathered by retinal observation. Pondering how Vermeer could have achieved such results, he invented—the idea came to him as he was relaxing in a bath tub—a simple, easy-to-use optical device, whose technology was easily within the reach of the seventeenth-century artist, and painstakingly taught himself to paint with it. The mirror of Jenison's device reflects an object in such a way that a painter can duplicate not only an object's principal contours on canvas but its precise colors and tones. Putting his theory to the ultimate test, Jenison built a perfectly scaled "set" of The Music Lesson in a San Antonio studio and "repainted" Vermeer's Music Lesson from it using the device. After various false starts, Jenison learned how to handle the device with greater efficacy, how to hand grind paint and how to domesticate paint and brush, an entirely new experience for the digital engineer. He employed seven months to complete the work, which he claims is easily accurate enough to uphold his hypothesis.
Although Jenison admits that there is no historical evidence that proves his hypothesis, he believes that if his method for transferring form, color and tone form with a mechanical device to a canvas was used by Vermeer, a chapter of art history would have to be revised.
Jenison's friends, the illusionists and professional debunkers Penn & Teller, united with him to fully document his years- long investigation into the mysterious methods of Dutch Master Johannes Vermeer. The movie includes commentary from Jillett, Hockney and Steadman. Speaking of the film, Hockney said, "It might disturb quite a lot of people," since it forces you to question everything that you thought you knew about great art and the people responsible for it. But, as Jillette points out, "it doesn't argue that they weren't geniuses; it just shows that they were fathomable geniuses, rather than unfathomable ones."
Video interviews:
Click here to view a YouTube interview with Jenison and hear his ideas on Vermeer at 34:35 minutes into the video. Another YouTube interview with Jenison, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfsbSK0WPqU
Review:
Variety - "Penn and Teller's uncanny crowdpleaser begs the question, is it still a masterpiece if an amateur could do it?" - Peter Debruge
http://variety.com/2013/film/reviews/telluride-film-review-tims-vermeer-1200596123/
The Guardian - "DIY Vermeer documentary utterly misses the point about old masters
Tim Jenison tried for a whole year to recreate a Vermeer painting—and all he got was a pedantic imitation"-Jonathan Jones
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2014/jan/28/tims-vermeer-fails
GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING
AND OTHER TREASURES FROM THE MAURITSHUIS MUSEUM NETHERLANDS
In cinemas from 13 January
from
Exhibition on Screen' website:
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer is one of the most enduring paintings in the history of art. Even today, its recent world tour garnered huge queues lining up for the briefest glimpse of its majestic beauty. In Japan 1.2 million people saw the exhibition. Yet the painting itself is surrounded in mystery. This beautifully filmed new documentary seeks to investigate the many unanswered questions associated with this extraordinary piece. Who was this girl? Why and how was it painted? Why is it so revered?
After its world tour, the Girl with a Pearl Earring returned to the much-loved Mauritshuis in The Hague, Netherlands, which has just completed extensive renovations. Enjoying unparalleled exclusive access to this historical exhibition, the film takes the audience on a journey as it seeks to answer many of the questions surrounding this enigmatic painting and its mysterious creator, Vermeer. Using the recently completed and highly complex makeover of the museum as its starting point, the film goes on a behind the scenes detective journey to seek out the answers that lie within the other masterpieces housed in the collection.
Vermeer-Related Conference
Vermeer's Daughter?
NYU Cantor Film Center, New York
May 18, 2013 | 1:00 a.m.–6: p.m.
In his book Vermeer's Family Secrets (Routledge in 2009), Cooper Union art history professor Benjamin Binstock proposed that four paintings by Vermeer, including the Girl with a Red Hat, might actually have been painted by his daughter, Maria, who he further identified as the model for the famous Girl with a Pearl Earring. Thus far, however, Binstock's thesis has been met with silence in the art historical press—itself a fascinating response. But what if we were to take Binstock's claims seriously, or at least allow them a fair hearing? How might we go about doing so? Beyond that, what if we in turn were to think about how such theories make their way through the art historical vetting process? How generally does scholarship evaluate such claims, and in turn how ought we evaluate how it does so? And if Binstock were proven right?
An all-day symposium will address Binstock's unorthodox theory and related questions will be held at the NYU Cantor Film Center, Saturday May 18, 2013 (11:00 a.m.–6: p.m.). The symposium will attended by:
- Benjamin Binstock
- Anthony Grafton
- Linda Nochlin
- Chuck Close (painter)
- James Elkins (art historian)
- Vincent Desiderio
- Rachael Cohen
- Ulrich Baer
Entrance is open to the public and free.
One Big step Closer to Recovering Vermeer's Stolen Concert?Drawn from the CNN website:
The FBI said Monday it believes it knows who was behind one of the most significant art heists in the United States—the 1990 theft of 13 precious works, once valued at $500 million, from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The did not reveal the suspects' names, but know that they "are members of a criminal organization with a base in the mid-Atlantic states and New England."
The bureau also said it believes the Vermeer's Concert—including paintings by Rembrandt—was taken to Connecticut and the Philadelphia area and that the thieves unsuccessfully tried to sell some of the artwork in Philadelphia about 10 years ago. The announcement comes on the 23rd anniversary of the theft, which the FBI says is one of the largest property crimes in U.S. history.
See full story:
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/18/justice/massachusetts-fbi-art-theft/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
High-Resolution of Vermeer's Guitar Player
The National Gallery of Art in London has just published a high-resolution image of Vermeer's Guitar Player which will reside at the gallery until the renovation of the picture's permanent collect (Kenwood House, London) is completed.
The Guitar Player Now on Display at the National Gallery
The National Gallery of Art in London is now exhibiting Vermeer's late Guitar Player during the renovation of the Kenwood House, where it is normally housed. The work is in the same room as the National Gallery's own A Lady Standing at a Virginal, room 25, second level.
Vermeer Travels to Shanghai, São Paulo and Los Angeles
The Rijksmuseum is starting its global campaign for the Grand Opening on 13 April, 2013 with an international tour of one of its masterpieces, Woman in Blue Reading a Letter. It will be first shown in Shanghai at the China Art Museum in the exhibition Congratulations from the World, then at the Museu de Arte in São Paulo, Brazil and finally at J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. At Grand Opening on 13 April, 2013, the painting will be on show again in the Rijksmuseum.
- China Art Palace (Shanghai) - October 1–October 31, 2012
http://www.sh-artmuseum.org.cn/ - Museu de Arte in São Paulo (São Paulo) December 12, 2012–February 10, 2013
http://masp.art.br/masp2010/exposicoes_integra.php?id=
127&periodo_menu=cartaz - J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles) February 16–March 31, 2013
http://www.getty.edu/visit/exhibitions/future.html
Vermeer and Dutch Painting Exhibition in Rome, Italy
Vermeer. Il secolo d'oro dell'arte olandese (in Italian only)
(Vermeer and the Golden Age of Dutch Art)
Scuderie del Quirinale
Rome, Italy
October 2012– January 20, 2013
From the exhibition website:
Vermeer and the Golden Age of Dutch Art is the first large-scale exhibition dedicated to one of the foremost Dutch painters of the seventeen century, and perhaps one of the general public's most beloved artists.
Organized by the Azienda Speciale Palaexpo and co-produced with MondoMostre, the exhibition is curated by Arthur K. Wheelock, Curator of Northern Baroque Paintings - National Gallery of Art in Washington, Walter Liedtke, Curator of European Paintings Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and Sandrina Bandera, Soprintendente per il Patrimonio Artistico Storico, Artistico ed Etnoantopologico di Milano.
Other than the eight confirmed works by Vermeer, many paintings by the key protagonists of the seventeenth-century Dutch genre school will be on display.
Vermeer-Related Novel
Vermeer's Lady in Waiting
by Laurel "Lolly" Anderson
2012
Millicent Clermont must learn what is real or fake in art, life and love. A painting discovered in her mentor's Virginia plantation is on the list of Nazi looted art. Is it a real Vermeer? Was does the secret code in the overpainting mean and why will people kill for it? From the majestic halls of the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, and the luscious landscapes of VIrginia, to Paris, Jerusalem and Germany, readers will be enthralled with fascinating details of painting authentication, forgeries and the Nazi desecration of the world's cultural treasures.
Oklahoma Book Awards 2013
To order, click here
Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring & the Diana and her Companions Go to Japan in 2012
Masterpieces from the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis
City Museum Kobe, Japan
October 29–December, 2012
This show will feature Vermeer's masterpiece Girl with a Pearl Earring and the early Diana and her Companions while many other masterpieces are already on display at a separate Vermeer show (continuing through March 14) at Tokyo's Bunkamura.
Video presentation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_
embedded&v=ZalFLhX0_o0