Saint Praxedis

Those who sustain Vermeer's authorship of the Saint Praxedis frequently point out the similarly of the Saint's physiognomy with that of the dozing girl in A Maid Asleep (see right, the detail of the Maid Asleep has been reversed to facilitate comparison). According to Vermeer expert Arthur Wheelock, the brushwork, paint structure and buildup of the heads are analogous.

In any case, the young Vermeer seems to have already revealed his life-long fascination for female interiority in his early history paintings. For although the Diana and her Companions and the Christ in the House of Martha and Mary represent themes of great historical import, we sense that the artist's interest lies as much in the women as individuals as protagonists of some impending narrative.

In respects to the original, the modeling in Vermeer's copy is somewhat more accentuated making Ficherelli's face appear sweeter of the two. The head in Vermeer's version seems slightly elongated in respects to Ficherelli's original.

The intense blue sky was painted according to Italian practice with a mixture of natural ultramarine ( the powder of crushed lapis lazuli) and lead white over a warm brown imprimatura.

Natural ultramarine, the rarest and costliest pigment of the 17th century, was to become the most characteristic pigment on Vermeer’s otherwise conventional palette. It has been hypothesized that owing to its elevated price, Vermeer’s patron Pieter van Ruijven may have furnished it to the painter in order to guarantee the exceptional brilliance of the strong blues which only ultramarine can produce.

The colors in Vermeer's copy appear more saturated than those in Ficherelli's original.

One of the most significant differences between Vermeer's copy and Ficherelli's original Saint Praxedis is the inclusion of a crucifix in the hands of the kneeling Saint. Arthur Wheelock, who is the principle supporter of the painting's attribution, believes that it may reflect the young artist's new-found Catholic sympathies as it is generally believed that Vermeer had converted to the Catholic religion two years earlier upon his marriage to Catharina Bolnes.

John Montias, Vermeer's chief biographer, speculated that the Jesuits could have commissioned the young Delft artist to make a copy of the painting. "It was perhaps even they who instructed Vermeer to put a golden crucifix in the hands of the Saint: for a crucifix in 17th-centry Holland was the symbolic object, that above all objects, signaled its owner's adherence to the Roman Catholic faith." Montias also points out that the Saint Praxedis reflects Vermeer early concern with women, even in his early history paintings.

An ebony wood crucifix was listed among the objects found in the Great Hall ("groote zael") of Vermeer's home in the death inventory of the artist. The crucifix was an item found almost exclusively in Roman Catholic households and in hidden churches. Vermeer painted another crucifix in his late religious Allegory of Faith (see left).

Scriptures relate that 23 Christians were discovered in the home of St. Praxedis, they were martyred before her very eyes. She had the presence of mind to collect their blood with a sponge and placed it in a well, where she herself was later buried, marked by the disk in the Basilica's floor.The sponge of Saint Praxedis was preserved as a relic in the Roman church dedicated to the Saint.

Saint Prudenita in a mosaic in the
basilica of Santa Pudenziana in Rome.

Saint Praxedis, or Prassede, was a Roman Christian of the 2nd century who is chiefly noted for having cared for the bodies of those martyred for their faith.

Her name is often associated with her sister Saint Pudentiana who may appear in the right background of Vermeer’s painting walking near the martyrium, both followed by their father, Pudens, a disciple of Saint Paul.

After many years of burying mutilated Christians, visiting the imprisoned, and comforting her suffering loved-ones, Praxedis died on July 21 of a disputed year, which is now her feast day of the Roman Catholic Church calendar. Saint Praxedis was reportedly buried with Pudentiana and Pudens in the catacombs of Priscilla, in via Salaria. However, while there does exist evidence for the life of St. Pudens, there is no direct evidence for either Praxedis or Pudentiana. It has been suggested that there was no such person as Pudentiana, the name having originated as an adjective for the titulus of Pudens, which was mistaken for the name of a female by later generations.

A church was built in Saint Praxedis’ honor on the alleged site of her house, to which her relics were taken when it was rebuilt by Pope Paschal I as the present Santa Prassede (Rome) in c. 822.

In Vermeer's picture, a beheaded man lies to the right-hand side of Saint Praxedis who squeezes out a blood-filled sponge which she had gathers the martyr's blood. The figure of the martyr is painted with greater emphasis than in the original by Ficherelli.

The present day Basilica of Santa Prassede in Rome is said to contain the sponge of Saint Praxedis - not to be confused with the Holy Sponge of Christ - which she used to collect the blood of 23 Christian Martyrs who had been murdered before her very eyes. Saint Praxedis had placed the sponge in a well, where she herself was later buried. Her relics were collected by Pope Paschal and laid in an ancient sarcophagus that predates the relics' arrival.

In Christianity, relics are the material remains of a deceased saint or martyr and objects closely associated with those remains. Relics can be entire skeletons, but more usually they consist of a part such as a bone, hair or tooth. A piece of clothing worn by the deceased saint or even an object that has come in contact with a relic is also considered a relic.

As the lives of the martyrs became an important source of inspiration for Christians worshipers, their lives and relics became revered. The 2nd-century Church Father Tertullian wrote that "the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Catholic Church," implying that the martyrs' willing sacrifice of their lives lead to the conversion of others. Many tales of miracles and other marvels were attributed to relics beginning in the early centuries of the church; many of these became especially popular during the Middle Ages.

The foreboding, monumental architecture in a generalized classical style rises above the scene setting the appropriate mood for the picture's somber narrative.

The compositions's perspective, indicated by the orthogonals of the buildings' cornices, creates a deep, hollow space which evidently was meant to dramatize the Saint's anguish. However, the vanishing point of the buildings does not coincide with that of the stone steps below. Evidently, Vermeer made no attempt to improve Ficherelli's less-than-firm grasp of one point linear perspective, considered at the time, a requisite for the knowledgeable history painter. In Ficherelli's original, the chiaroscural values of the architecture seems to be treated more delicately than Vermeer's copy.

The conventionally "antique" red dress appears to have been painted with a common glaze technique using the organic ruby red madder pigment (extracted from the madder plant), one of the most transparent and brilliant reds available to painters. Madder has been cultivated as a dyestuff since antiquity in central Asia and Egypt, where it was grown as early as 1500 B.C. Cloth dyed with madder root pigment was found in the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun and in the ruins of Pompeii and ancient Corinth. In the middle ages, Charlemagne encouraged madder cultivation. It grew well in the sandy soils of the Netherlands and became an important part of the local economy.

In order to obtain the maximum depth and vibrancy of color, painters had learned it was important to separate the problems of rendering form from color. For example, intensely-colored draperies were first modeled with relatively monochrome tones, usually raw umber (a dull but extremely versatile natural earth pigment) for the darks and lead-white for the lights. In this phase, called underpainting, the artist could occupy himself exclusively with the distribution of light and dark to evoke the play of light which explains the drapery's tuck and fold. Once thoroughly dry, a somewhat syrupy mixture of naturally transparent paint mixed with drying oil was carefully "glazed" on top of the underpainting giving it a full vibrant color, especially in the lights, unattainable by direct mixture of paints. The shine-through effect is somewhat analogous to laying a sheet of colored acetate over a monochrome image. Vermeer seems to have used such a procedure in the red drapery of the present work.

Although at first glance Vermeer's copy appears to be an exact replica of Ficherelli's Saint Praxedis, there are divergences in both motif and style. The copy presents a crucifix in the hands of the saint while none is present in the original. The robust chiaroscural scheme of the copy is more clearly stated with lights and darks massed together in distinct areas to create a more dramatic effect of movement and light. Paint is applied more sparingly in Ficherelli's original and both modeling and brushwork appear more nuanced.

While for Arthur Wheelock the more robust approach painting technique can be related to some passages of the Christ in the House of Martha and Mary and the red blouse of the seated nymph in Diana and her Companions, conservator Jørgen Wadum sees in the work technical elements which are uncharacteristic of any known painting by Vermeer.

In the red drapery, Wadum notes curious "minute wavy strokes" of the brush of a seemingly "trembling hand" everywhere in the figure's tunic. Wadum conjectures that these very signs "reveal the artist's character" even though he admits the possibility of a conscious attempt to imitate Ficherelli's style could explain the particular stylistic trait. Wadum wrote, "as far as I can judge from photographic evidence, wavey brush-handling is not found in the Ficherelli of Ferrara on which the copy is based. He further notes that just such way brush work is present in three works by Ficherelli in the National Gallery of Dublin.