Mistress and Maid
(Dame en dienstbode)
c. 1666-1667
oil on canvas
35 1/2 x 31 in. (90.2 x 78.7 cm.)
The Frick Collection, New York
The theme of a mistress and her maid staged in an upper-class domestic setting was enormously popular among Dutch genre painters. Such paintings afforded artists the chance to reflect upon the new fashions and social relationship of women of different social ranks. Vermeer elaborated on this theme three times, the first in the present picture and in two later works, the Woman Writing a Letter with her Maid and the late Love Letter.
Vermeer carefully demarks the subordinate social status of the maid in respects to her mistress. She wears drab working clothes, her dark hair is pulled back unceremoniously while her mistress dons on an exquisite fur-trimmed jacket and sports what must be the latest hair-style, her radiant blond hair punctuated with a myriad of expensive pearls. It is curious to note that in all three paintings even though dress clearly indicates the maid's inferior social status, she is nevertheless positioned as standing above her seated mistress.
In this picture, Vermeer focuses on the precise moment when the plain-dressed maid consigns a letter, presumably a love letter, to her mistress. The deference of her posture seems to cast the maid in neutral, if not supportive role.
The mistress is one of Vermeer's finest rendering of the female psyche and physiognomy. The perfections of her features recall classical models which Walter Liedtke, one of the most receptive of Vermeer experts, relates to the pictorial sensitivity of Michael Sweerts, Cesar van Everdingen, Caspar Netscher and Karel du Jardin.
The sensitive, slightly blurred line of the mistress' profile recalls one critic's definition of the contour of the girl's face in the Girl with a Pearl Earring as "the sweetest line ever painted." The economical rendering of the anatomical features is truly astounding and finds few equals in Dutch painting. Her uncertain gaze is rendered with a few wisps of grayish paint that displays no linear definition whatsoever. Just as the present case, none of the women who modeled for Vermeer's paintings have ever been identified.
Man Writing a Letter (detail)
Gabriel Metsu
25 x 24 cm
Musee Fabre, Montpellier
Writing sets usually consisted in a plate with two small cup-like vessels with covers: one for the ink and one for the "blotting sand" or pounce (later in the form of a salt shaker) as well as a quiver for the quills. More refined sorts of sets, like that in Vermeer's A Lady Writing or Mistress and Maid have one or two drawers to store the writing utensils (quills, pen-knife, signets and sealing wax, if used).
Although Vermeer's depiction is far from being descriptive, the writing set must have been similar to ones painted time and time again in letter-writing genre works of the same period. Both writing sets and one of the popular writing manuals appear in Gabriel Metsu's Man Writing a Letter (see detail above)
Title page from D. Mostaert's
Vermeerderde Nederduytsche
Secretaris oft zendtbrief schryver
(Amsterdam 1656)
Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague
The Maid and Mistress shows two letters, one sealed and one unfinished. Although the first lines of the opened letter can be discerned, obviously, no words can be deciphered. But according to scholars, it must have been a love letter.
In the Netherlands, letters, a necessity for communication over the sprawling Dutch trade empire, had reached profusion unknown in other European states. Non-commercial letter writing and calligraphy manuals were issued in great numbers to instruct and inspire members of the upper social classes. One of the most popular letter-writing manuals and one that Vermeer's young mistress may have been familiar with, was Jean Puget de la Serre's Le Secrétaire à la Mode, first published into Dutch in 1651. It offered letter-writing advice and exemplars to cover every conceivable social situation, with about one-fifths of the text devoted to love letters. The reader could choose from model letters professing varying degrees of love and devotion each followed by a range of possible responses, from timid encouragement to outright refusal.
This garment appears in five other paintings by Vermeer but none are treated so lavishly. This kind of jacket called a jak, sometimes referred to in Delft as a mantelje, was worn by middle- and upper-class women while at home. It protected them against the cold during the long Dutch winters as they performed household chores while conferring them a discreet elegance. However, it would not have been worn outdoors or on formal occasions. The fur trim has traditionally been described in Vermeer literature as ermine but costume expert Marieke de Winkel relates that even in the inventories of the wealthiest women this particular fur is never mentioned. It was more likely to have been white squirrel or rather unromantically, cat. Not a single jacket of this kind has survived. The scarlet ribbons served to tie the gown.
In Vermeer's death inventory of 1676 a "yellow satin mantle with white fur trimmings" was found in the "groote zael" (great hall) of the artist's home, which likely belonged to his wife Catharina Bolnes.
Although the still life of this painting is very similar to the one in A Lady Writing, the more intense illumination of the Mistress and Maid produces a sharper contrast between the lights and darks on the folds of the blue tablecloth charging it with a life of its own. The blue provides a visual contrast to the yellow of the mistress' jacket, Vermeer's signature color harmony.
La belle Ferronière
Leonardo da Vinci
c. 1490
63 x 45 cm
Musée du Louvre, Paris
Dark backgrounds were widely used in portraiture to isolate the figure from distracting elements and enhance its three-dimensional effect.
In fragment 232 of the Treatise on Painting, Leonardo da Vinci had noted that a dark background makes an object appear lighter and vice versa and Leonardo himself employed the device in some of his portraits. Interestingly, despite the successful use of this format here, it is the only instance we know in which Vermeer used an undefined background for a large composition.
Although this device contributes to the dramatic effect of this canvas, it may not have been part of Vermeer's original concept. Observing the painting directly one can clearly make out a series of diagonal shifts in tone behind the seated mistress which suggest the presence of a drawn-back curtain. Vermeer may have become unsatisfied with the original concept and decided to exploit the effect of the dark background previously experimented in two other works, the bust-size Girl with a Pearl Earring and the Study of a Young Woman.
On the table lies a fancy veneered box and writing set on a tray. Both objects arranged in a slightly different manner, appear in another painting by Vermeer, A Lady Writing. No critic has ever speculated on the purpose of the box although it would most likely be intended to hold jewelry or in this case, an even more precious commodity, the love letters of the mistress. This kind of writing set was represented in numerous canvases of Vermeer's contemporaries such as Nicolaes Maes, Gabriel Metsu and Gerard ter Borch.
The Cook (detail)
Gabril Metsu
1657-67
40 x 34 cm
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
As maids had become an indispensable part of Dutch upper-class living, so genre painters, who tailored their works to this class' aspirations, represented them infinite times in a variety of attitudes. Their working dress, however, must have been fairly standardized. In fact, the maid in Gabriel Metsu's The Cook (see left) is dressed almost identical to that of the present work by Vermeer.
How did Dutch maids behave? In theory at least, maids were hard working, supportive and loyal. In practice, things could be very different. In emblematic and popular theatre of the day, maids were frequently cast as a threat to the security of the home, the cherished center of Dutch life. As Simon Schama wrote, in the 17th-century maids were "indisputably regarded as the most dangerous women of all..."
However, in Northern Europe maids were represented in a more neutral role, caring for children or themselves supervised by the mistress of the house. Occasionally, a few painters, including Vermeer himself (Milkmaid) portrayed them with dignity and empathy. Pieter de Hooch pictured them in a sympathetic light in a number of works of his Delft period as they diligently assist their mistress or care for the children of the house.
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Departing from the traditional iconography of the letter writer, Vermeer nevertheless relied upon the underlying thematic content to give poignance to his scene. The mistress' expression reveals the uncertainties of love that disrupt the serenity of ordered existence. The mistress' controlled demeanor and fashionable wardrobe seems to suggest that such fleeting doubts affect even those who are most secure and content in their lives. The maid, while offering the letter, responds to her mistress' gaze with a caring yet concerned look. With her slightly opened mouth and lowered eyelids, her expression is as restrained as her mistress', yet Vermeer created a visual dialogue between them that conveys the intense psychological impact of the letter's arrival.
Arthur K. Wheelock, Vermeer and the Art of Painting, 1995
No signature appears on this work.
c. 1667-1668
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. Vermeer: The Complete Works, New York, 1997)
c. 1666-1667
Walter Liedtke Vermeer: The Complete Paintings, New York, 2008)
literature
- (?) Pieter Claesz van Ruijven, Delft (d. 1674); (?) his widow, Maria de Knuijt, Delft (d. 1681);
- (?) their daughter, Magdalena van Ruijven, Delft (d. 1682);
- (?) her widower, Jacob Abrahamsz Dissius (d. 1695);
- Dissius sale, Amsterdam, 16 May 1696, no. 7;
- sale, Amsterdam, 15 October 1738, no. 12 (to Oortman);
- probably Van Helsleuter et al. sale, Paris (Paillet), 25 January 1802, no. 106 (bought in);
- [Ch. Lebrun, Paris];
- sale, Paris (Paillet), 16 January 1809, no. 34 (to Lebrun);
- Lebrun sale, Paris, 20 March 1810, no. 143 (to Chevallier);
- sale, Paris (Paillet), 24 March 1818, no. 48;
- Dufour, Marseilles (from 1819 or earlier);
- Duchesse de Berry sale, Paris, 4-6 April 1837, no 76 (to Paillet);
- E. Secrétan sale, Paris, 1 July 1889, no. 139 (to Sedelmeyer);
- A. Paulovstof, St. Petersburg;
- [Lawrie & Co., London]; [Sulley & Co., London, in 1905];
- James Simon, Berlin (?1906-at least 1914);
- [Knoedler, New York];
- Henry Clay Frick, New York (in 1919; d. 1919);
- The Frick Collection, New York (acc. no. 11.1.126).
exhibitions
Cupid Presenting a Letter to a Maid
Emblem from Jan Harmenz. Krul, Pampiere Wereld
(Amsterdam, 1644), vol. 2
Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague
Vermeer had often pictured figures interacting in the intimacy of a well-appointed home. Although this motif had been pioneered by other Dutch artists, Gerard ter Borch brought it to a state of near perfection. His ability to represent the psychological undercurrents running below the surface of formal, interpersonal relationships finds no equal except in the painting of Vermeer.
Although the narrative in this work is straightforward, its psychological implications are complex. Two themes are subtly intertwined. On one hand, we observe the elegant mistress as she ponders the arrival of a sealed love letter suggesting some kind of relationship with a distant loved-one. On the other hand, the more visually explicit, but veiled relationship of the mistress and her subordinate maid is evoked by furtive glances and body language.
The psychological uncertainty of the mistress is subtly conveyed by her pensive gaze, which the artist does not allow us to fully see, her parted lips and the questioning gesture of the fingertips just brought to her chin. The maid's gaze, although more directly portrayed, is none the less undecipherable. Her open mouth does not tell us what the words she has just spoken even though the deference of her posture seems to cast her in a supportive, positive role. How much does the mistress know about the missive she is about to receive? Is it from the same person to whom she is writing her own letter? And is the maid onto something more about the letter through her role as a go-between?
Just what goes on behind the fleeting exchange of words and glances between the two women, like the unopened letter itself, is suspended for an eternal moment allowing each viewer to interpret the exchange in the light of his own needs and expectations.
This work presents a number of stylistic and technical anomalies: the exceptionally large-scale of the figures, the pitch black background and the particularly dramatic modeling. The canvas appears well conserved and presents the typical Vermeer color scheme of yellow and blue which probably appears much as it did when the canvas was on the artist's easel.
Vermeer, like other Dutch interior painters, variegated the way he applied the paint to the canvas in order to evoke the different textures and the play of light. For example, the illuminated parts of the yellow jacket are modeled with sumptuous, sweeping brushstrokes of lead-tin yellow while the shadows are insistently defined with knife-like precision creating a sparkling, almost material sense of light unfound in his other renditions of the same garment. On the other hand, the flesh of the seated mistress is executed with the tonal transitions so vague yet so refined that the transparency and delicacy of the mistress' milk-white skin could no more faithfully be represented.
Particularly effective is the daring simplicity with which the profile of the mistress is rendered. On close inspection, the anatomical structure of her eye has been replaced by a cloud-like smudge of light gray paint, and yet the observer immediately comprehends her worried glance.
The folded letter held by the maid is executed with a thick layer of lead white which stands out in material relief, a fact which is hardly apparent in reproduction, underlining the central importance of the letter in the painting's terse narrative.
One can easily recognize the ink-stained tip of the woman's quill which is momentarily at rest. On the open letter, about ten written lines indicated by delicate dabs of light-gray paint can be made out.
Introduced around 700 AD, the quill pen was the dominant writing instrument until 19th century (replaced by the dip pen and later the fountain pen). Feathers from the left wing were favored as they curved to the right, away from the hand of the commonly right-handed writer. Quills had to be sharpened frequently, using a special "pen-knife" (see respective paintings by Frans Mieris or Gerrit Dou) and lasted only about a week, then had to be replaced. This is why in paintings showing lawyers or scholars in their studio we sometimes find a number of quill pens lying on the desk. A hand-cut goose quill pen is still the preferred tool for calligraphy as it provides a sharp stroke and more flexibility than a steel pen.
About 400 AD a stable form of ink developed: a composite of iron-salts, nutgalls and gum as the basic formula for the iron-gall inks, used from the Middle Ages (c. 12th century) until 19th /20th century, despite its possible destructive properties of gradual fading and weakening the paper. Iron gall inks were certainly used in 17th-century Netherlands, as in entire Western Europe, for writing in general. With Netherlands' increasing oversea's trade the Chinese Indian ink became probably available in Holland and soon the preferred ink for special (official) documents due to its improved durability and saturation. Lawyers for instance may have favored this ink, and from a conscious look on the Vermeer-documents it seems likely, that Vermeer (and Catharina) had signed the documents using the lawyer's (e.g. Willem de Langue) ink, which was probably an Indian ink. The tint appears quite clear and dark, no brownish fading (as with iron-gall inks) and no weakening of the paper (of strong, solid quality) are visible.
In no other painting do we find such an abundance of pearls as in this work. The comely mistress wears a pair of oversized drop earrings (artificial), a pearl necklace and strings of pearls arranged in courtly fashion. Pearls were an important status symbol of the age and they held for the educated Dutch picture-viewer a number of associations, some of them contradicting. In the present work, no scholar has remarked upon their eventual iconographic meaning, they seem to have been simply included for their aesthetic value and as a means for defining the elevated social standing of the mistress.
Wherever it may be positioned in Vermeer's oeuvre, the scale of the figures in the Mistress and Maid comes as a surprise. Although not life-size, these figures are the largest ever painted by Vermeer after those of the early Procuress.
We may be legitimately vexed by Vermeer's intentions since the work's theme contains nothing that would seem necessitate a larger format.
Although large-scale human figures were not a unique occurrence in Dutch interior painting, in general, they were reserved for history painting which aimed at conveying messages of universal or monumental import. History paintings inevitably carried a "public" message which could be contemporarily appreciated by multiple viewers in both private and public places. Civic group portraits, such as Rembrandt's Night Watch, could assume truly monumental dimensions. Another genre which favored large-scale figures was the gaudy Dutch Caravaggesque brothel scene which displayed bare-breasted prostitutes in alluring costumes painted with splashes of bright color and strong contrast whose function was to seduce the viewer similar to the way the prostitute seduces her client. Oppositely, the restrained intimacy and private dwellings of interior genre paintings found its natural expression in the small-scale "cabinet" format which induce the viewer to draw physically close to the painting and engage in a one-to-one, exclusive relationship with the image.
Certainly, Vermeer's image as we see it today is not what he originally had in mind. The broad diagonal shifts in tone of the dark background indicate the presence of a large pulled-back curtain behind the figures parallel to the picture plane. Was it a simple mono-colored curtain or a tapestry with a fanciful design? The presence of a curtain might have been intended to create a more natural setting rather than the artificial black void that prevails today.
One could hypothesize that Vermeer's patron desired a large-scale format adapted to a particular viewing condition in his home. Another explanation could be that the artist himself was curious to experiment his tried-and-proven interior compositions in a new format and test the impact of the enhanced scale.
Jan Dismas Zelenka
Trio sonata ZWV 181, no. 4, Adagio [1.18 MB]
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Gabriel Metsu
1662-65
53 x 40 cm
National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin
Michiel Sweerts
c. 1661 81 x 112 cm.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Emblem from Jan Harmenz. Krul, Pampiere Wereld
(Amsterdam, 1644), vol. 2
Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague
Lady with her Maidservant
1809
outline engraving
Jacob Ochtervelt
Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe