A LADY SEATED AT A VIRGINAL
(Zittende virginaalspeelster)
c. 1670-1675
oil on canvas
20 3/4 x 17 7/8 in. (51.5 x 45.5 cm.)
The National Gallery
London
an interactive analysis *
scroll your cursor over the 12
hot areas of the
painting, or the 3 special topics below.
(browsers: IE 4+, IE 5+,
IE 6+, NS 4+, NS 6+)
MP3 audio files of virginals music for the time of Vermeer
Almande De Symmerman very likely Almande The Carpenter (anon.) from The Susanne van Soldt Manuscript (1599)
Malle Symen "Silly Simon"
(Jan Pzn. Sweelinck) from The Leningrad Manuscript
(1646)
Courante Daphne The popular melody 'Daphne' as a French 'Courante' dance (anon.) also from The Leningrad Manuscript (1646)
* all three music files were kindly selected and performed for the Essential Vermeer website by Joop Klaassen, contributor to the Stichting Clavecimbel Genootschap Nederland.
The virginals are a kind of harpsichord. Mr Klaassen's Muselaer virginals were built by Louis van Emmerik, after the Ruckers virginals of 1611 in 'Het Vleeshuis,' a museum in Antwerp, Belgium. The muselaer virginals have the keyboard on the right, and they have a richer sound than the spinet virginals, which have the keyboard on the left. The virginals in Vermeer paintings are of the muselaer type.
For more information on Vermeer and the virginals, click here.
the following resources were used
to compile the text of this interactive study- BAILEY, Anthony, Vermeer: A View of Delft, New York, 2001
- BLANKERT, Albert, (with contributions by RUURS, Rob and VAN DE WATERING, Willem), Vermeer, Oxford, 1978
- GOWING, Lawrence, Vermeer, London, 1952 and 1970
- LIEDTKE, Walter, in Vermeer and the Delft School, ed. by Ivan Gaskell und Michiel Jonker New York, 2001
- NASH, J. M., Vermeer, London, 1991
- SCHNEIDER, Norbert, Jan Vermeer 1632.1675: Veiled Emotions, Cologne, 1994
- SUTTON, Peter, "Love Letters: Dutch Genre paintings in the Age of Vermeer," in Love Letters: Dutch Genre Paintings in the Age of Vermeer, London, 2004, pp. 14-49
- VERGARA, Alejandro, Vermeer and the Dutch Interior, Madrid, 2003
- de WINKEL, Marieke, "The Interpretation of Dress in Vermeer's Painting," in Vermeer Studies, edited by Ivan Gaskell and Michiel Jonker, National Gallery of Art Washington D.C., Yale University Press, New Haven, London 1998
"There is hardly a detail in either of them ('Lady Standing at a Virginal' and 'Lady Seated at a Virginal') which does not contribute to the pervading emotional meaning which each conveys. From this standpoint these works may contain surprises for those who have become used to references in the literature of the subject to the dull pictures in the London Gallery.
Théophile Thoré, who owned both of these pictures, called Vermeer the Sphinx. The reference is appropriate. But we may fancy Vermeer's role in the story was less that of a merciless examiner than victim, condemned to try at his peril to resolve a riddle, and to frame his own enigmatic answer to it."
Lawrence Gowing, Vermeer, 1952