Technical Description

A Lady Seated at the Virginal

The fine, plain-weave linen support, which has been lined, has a thread count of 14 x 14 per cm². The original tacking edges are still present.

The double ground, a warm, gray buff over a pale gray layer, extends over the tacking edges on all sides. The first layer contains lead white, chalk, and charcoal black; the second layer contains chalk, lead white, and a red-brown ocher or burnt umber.

The flesh tones were built up with pink, with a pink-white mixture added in the highlights, and green earth added in the shadows. The shaded areas have a further brown-green layer. The pearls are pure white spots on a gray-brown band, which uses the brown-green of the flesh shadow as a base. The paint layers do not extend over the tacking edges. A pinhole where Vermeer marked the vanishing point is visible in the paint layer behind the chair.

Both the paler yellow-brown and the dark-brown surface layers in the yellow skirt are affected by a white efflorescence. The paint in all the blue areas has a somewhat degraded appearance.

* Johannes Vermeer (exh. cat., National Gallery of Art and Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis - Washington and the Hague, 1995, edited by Arthur Wheelock

signature:

inscribed at right, next to the lady's head: IVMeer (IVM in ligature)