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.

Lady Seated at the Virginals, Johannes Vermeer

"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