A LADY STANDING AT A VIRGINAL

(Staande Virginaalspeelster )

c. 1670-1673
oil on canvas
20 3/8 x 17 1/4 in.  (51.7 x 45.2 cm.)
National Gallery, London

an interactive analysis *
scroll your cursor over the 14 hot areas of the painting or the 4 special  topics of interest below
(browsers: IE 4+, IE 5+, IE 6+, NS 4+, NS 6+)

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.


Otto van Veen, "Only One."
illustration from Amorum Emblemata
published Antwerp, 1603 
For more information on Vermeer and the virginals, click here.


  • the following resources were used to compile the text of this interactive study
  • Albert Blankert, (with contributions by  Rob Ruurs and  Willem van der Watering), Vermeer,  Oxford, 1978
  • Ivan Gaskell,  Vermeer's Wager (Sudies in Art History and Culture), London, 2000
  • Ivan Gaskell, "Vermeer and the Limits of Interpretation" in Vermeer Studies, edited by Ivan Gaskell and Michiel Jonker, New Haven and London, 1998
  • Elise Goodman, "The Landscape on the Wall in Vermeer,"in The Cambridge Companion to Vermeer, edited by Wayne Franits, Cambridge, 200, pp.73-88
  • H. Rodney Nevitt Jr., "Vermeer and the Question of Love," in The Cambridge Companion to Vermeer, edited by Wayne Franits, Cambridge, 200, pp.89-110
  • Gregor Weber, "Vermeer's Use of the Picture-within-a-Picture: A New Approach," in Vermeer Studies, edited by Ivan Gaskell and Michiel Jonker, National Gallery of Art Washington D.C., Yale University Press, New Haven, London 1998, pp. 295-307
  • Marieke de Winkel, "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, pp. 327-335