Technical Description
The Little Street (Het Straatje)
The support is a fine, plain weave linen, with a thread count or 14 x 14 per cm² The original tacking edges are present and marks from the original strainer bars are 3.5" cm. from the edge on all sides. Of the two lining canvases one is probably attached with glue/ paste, the other with wax resin.
The gray ground visible along the silhouette of the right house and in parts of the brick façade contains umber, a little chalk and lead white. Coarse particles of lead white protrude through the thin paint layers of the facade and in the brown shadows. Along the left edge of the painting secondary cusping is evident.
The sky was underpainted with lead white, over which the chimneys on the v-shaped-roof line were painted. Azurite was used in the underpainting of the three upper windows, including sills and surrounds, of the right house, followed by a creamy yellow layer. The sequence of paint layers is reversed in the ground-floor windows of this house. The foliage was painted with an azurite and lead tin-yellow mixture, three different shades of an ultramarine and lead white mixture, and pure ultramarine.
* Johannes Vermeer
signature:
inscribed below window at left:
i VMeer (VM in ligature)
