A YOUNG WOMAN SEATED
AT THE VIRGINAL

critical excerpt

No signature appears on this work.

c. 1670-1672
Walter Liedtke, Vermeer: The Complete Paintings, New York, 2008)

literature

exhibitions

The burial records of the Oude Kerk of Delft fixes Vermeer's burial on 15 December 1675. The once prosperous painter left 10 minor children and momentous debts to his wife, Catharina. In an effort to free herself of her creditors, she lamented her lack of financial resources caused by her husband who had lapsed into "decay and decadence." Decadence may have indicated the artist had lapsed into drink, a virtual plague in the Netherlands, or perhaps just a sudden physical decline such as a stroke or a heart failure. Catharina stated that the artist had become so burdened by his economic problems that "as if he had fallen into frenzy and in a day and a half had gone from being healthy to being dead." Although there is a tomb marker of Vermeer's grave in the Oude Kerk, its original location has been lost through the centuries.

As the Vermeer expert Walter Liedtke pointed out, the "similarities of this picture and in four late paintings by Vermeer might be taken as evidence of authenticity or imitation. Even the double shadow behind the music stand, the bluish-white illumination of the wall and its slight regularities could be interpreted as extremely subtle derivations from late works by Vermeer, assuming the imitator had access to them and the expertise to imitate their unusual effects. However, technical analysis and conservations have revealed that the painting is at least 250 years old and that it was made from the ground up of materials and methods distinctive of Vermeer. The canvas is so consistent in its comparatively course weave with the support of the Lacemaker that they may be from the same bolt of cloth."

Furthermore, the orthogonals of the perspective all lead to a pinhole which was a practical method employed by Vermeer and other painters to work out and verify the perspectival construction of the image. Perhaps, the most convincing and peculiar piece of evidence in favor of the work's authenticity is the presence of natural ultramarine blue in minimal quantities in the gray paint mixture used to render the light gray background wall. As far as conservators are aware, such use, found in various canvases by Vermeer, is rarely come across in the works of Dutch painters of the time.

Thus, while the painting displays some stylistic lacunae likely due to overpainting by a later hand, technical analysis and the firm layout of the composition points very strongly to the hand of Johannes Vermeer.

The most significant information regarding the dating of the work was furnished by Marieke de Winkel, costume expert for the Rembrandt Research Project, who has established, on the basis of research using a wide range of sources including contemporary letters, prints, paintings and doll's houses, that the hair-style and arrangement of hair-ribbons seen in this picture were fashionable only for a couple of years at the most, around 1670.

The combination of hair pulled back into a bun with ringlets hanging down on each side and a mix of thin red and white ribbons in the hair soon gave way in popular fashion to the style seen in the two London paintings, where the hair is still drawn back into a bun, but with numerous small decorative curls around the hairline and no ringlets or other embellishments. The Louvre Lacemaker, which is generally dated around 1670 on stylistic grounds, shows very much the same hairstyle as that seen here, and this, together with the technical evidence linking the two pictures, suggests very strongly that the present painting of A Young Woman Seated at the Virginal should also be dated to around 1670, making it Vermeer's first exploration of the theme that was to provide the subject for his two famous paintings in the National Gallery.

A Walking Musketeer Seen from Behind
Anthonie Palamedesz
1640s
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Lest we judge too harshly the last works of Vermeer, it should be kept in mind that he must have painted very little in his final years. His life, like the lives of many, was then plagued by extreme social unrest caused by the French invasion of the Netherlands in 1672 as well as an ever-growing family which proved increasingly difficult to provide for. Debt slowly closed in on Vermeer and his family although until the end of his life there is evidence that he was considered a respectable citizen. He was inscribed as a "schutter" or marksman of the Delft Civic Guard, a position which guaranteed a degree of honor and social standing.

In peacetime, acceptance in the militia required to be "among the most learned burgers from the most admirable families and those who are men of property." However, in times of war the entrance could be stretched to an occasional shoemaker and tailor. A guard's pay, compared to their duties, consisting in a small subsidiary or a (partial) release from certain taxes, was negligible. Nevertheless, the membership in a Civic Guard was a matter of civic pride, an honor which lead to the development of a kind of "civic nobility" (burgeredeldom).

A final blow to Vermeer's fortune must have been the death of his long-time patron Pieter van Ruijven in 1674. Van Ruijven had acquired more than half of the artist's total output assuring the artist an economic base which allowed him to paint as he wished free from market pressures.

On March 30, 2004 Sotheby's announced the sale of the Young Woman Seated at the Virginal (to be distinguished from the London painting as of similar theme and title) as an authentic painting by Johannes Vermeer. This small unsigned canvas (about 8 x 10 inches or 25 x 20 centimeters) was first identified by modern collectors at an Amsterdam sale in 1814. Since 1960, it was held in the private collection of Baron Freddy Rolin in Brussels who passionately believed in the painting's authenticity. Even though the work had never really stimulated more than lukewarm critical response, experts such as Hofstede de Groot, Phillip Hale, and P. T. A. Swillens had accepted it as an authentic Vermeer. Lawrence Gowing, who has perhaps written one of the most penetrating and influential interpretations of Vermeer's art, only perfunctorily included a photograph of it in his 1952 monograph. He did not, however, provide a comment about its artistic merits.

The painting's fortune began to change when Walter Liedtke, curator of the comprehensive Vermeer and the Delft School show in New York and London in 2001, decided at the very last minute to include it in that exhibition although it was not included in the catalogue.

After more than 10 years of extensive research by a team of leading scholars the painting has now been proposed as a secure addition to Vermeer's limited oeuvre. Walter Liedtke included it within Vermeer's oeuvre in his 2008 complete catalogue of Vermeer's painting.

Although the belief of the painter of genius toiling away isolated within the confines of his studio may be a central myth of modernism, it had precious little to do with former times. In his famous Vite (see title page left), the artists that Giorgio Vasari admired are the same Renaissance artists we admire today, in nearly the same ranking and degree. Much the same could be said for the French, Dutch, and Spanish schools.

Perhaps the greatest exception to this rule is Johannes Vermeer. Outside of a few celebrated works which held their own in the Netherlands, Vermeer's fame languished until the middle of the 19th century. He now keeps company of a handful of his fellow Masters, such as Leonardo, Raphael and Rembrandt van Rijn.

Although Vermeer was admired in his own city and his works commanded relatively high prices, his fame did not reach farther than Amsterdam. Ironically, the spread of his fame was substantially impaired by his own way of working and doing business. He painted slowly and produced very few paintings, no more than three or four a year. Although 37 works have been proposed by authoritative scholars as authentic, there exists good reasons to believe he probably painted no more than 60.

On the other hand, popular artists such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Frans Hals and Jan van Goyen produced works in the hundreds and in Van Goyen's case, more than one thousand paintings have survived. The output of Gabriel Metsu and Pieter de Hooch, Vermeer's direct "rivals," far exceed Vermeer's.

More than half of Vermeer's paintings were purchased by a single local collector, Pieter van Ruijven. In an age when there were neither public art galleries nor museums, art publications or photographs, the distribution of a great number of paintings and/or graphic works was perhaps the best venue to assure that an artist's work would inscribe itself into the collective consciousness. Otherwise they would have to have been exhibited in important public buildings or Churches. However, it is well known that both public and religious patronage were in short supply in the United Republic.

Den Meij (The May), Anon. [997 KB]

performed by Hendrik Broekman
on a Flemish muselar virginal after Ruckers.
http://www.hubharp.com/sound_samples.htm

The virginal (or virginals), together with the harpsichord, has its origin probably in the medieval psaltery with a keyboard applied, to be able to play polyphonic music (i.e. melody with accompanying chords). It is mentioned for the first time c. 1460 in a treatise by Paulus Paulirinus of Prague. Although limited in its tonal resources, the virginal occupied a crucial position in the musical life in the 16th and 17th centuries as it was smaller, simpler and cheaper than the harpsichord which is rather rarely represented in paintings, drawings etc.

The main center of virginal- and keyboard making in general was undoubtedly Antwerp/Flanders, with the renowned families of Ruckers and Couchet. Italy was the second center, and since King Henry's VIII's purchase of five virginal it enjoyed considerable appreciation in England. Until the 18th century the virginal remained in use both as solo instrument, even in private circles of music making, as well as for accompaniment of the singing voice or melodic instruments, like the viola da gamba.

The virginal usually appears with a rectangular case, although polygon forms in various sizes were built as well. The metal strings, here only in single choir, runs roughly parallel to the keyboard. They are plucked by plectra mounted on jacks. The jacks (one for each key) are arranged in pairs and placed along a line running from the front of the instrument at the left to the back at the right. They pluck in opposite directions, so that the pairs of jacks are separated by closely spaced pairs of strings. Each pair of jacks is usually served by a single slot in the soundboard, together with another slot below in a thin guide above the keys. Leather on the soundboard and lower guide provides a quiet bearing surface for the jacks.

The typical Flemish "muselar" type (probably invented by Hans Ruckers) has the keyboard to the right side, their strings plucked at a point near the centre for virtually their entire range, producing a powerful, flute-like tone. Though since the jacks and keys for the left hand are inevitably placed in the middle of the instrument's soundboard, any mechanical noise from these is amplified and the central plucking point in the bass strings makes repetition difficult because the motion of the still-sounding string interferes with the ability of the plectrum to connect again. Thus the muselaer is better suited to chord- and melody-music without complex bass parts.

The spinet virginal has its keyboard placed off-centre to the left. The jacks run in a line close to the left-hand bridge; therefore the point at which the jacks pluck the strings is close to the mid-point in the treble and well away towards the left end in the bass. Thus the timbre of the spinet gradually changes from flute-like in the treble to reedy in the bass.