WOMAN HOLDING A BALANCE
(Vrouw met weegschaal)
c. 1662-1665
oil on canvas
16 3/4 x 15 in. (42.5 x 38 cm.)
The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
Widener Collection
an interactive analysis *
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the following resources were
used for this interactive study:- BAILEY, Anthony, Vermeer: A View of Delft, New York, 2001
- BLANKERT, Albert, "Vermeer's Modern
Themes and their Traditions," in Johannes
Vermeer, Yale
University Press, ed. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., New Haven &London,
1995
- BLANKERT, Albert, (with contributions by RUURS, Rob and VAN DE WATERING, Willem), Vermeer, Oxford, 1978
- GOODMAN, Elise, "The Landscapes on the Wall in Vermeer," in The Cambridge Companion Guide to Vermeer, edited by Wayne Franits, Cambridge, 2001, pp. 73-88
- GOWING, Lawrence, Vermeer, London, 1952 and 1970
- LIEDTKE, Walter, in Vermeer and the Delft School, edited by Ivan Gaskell and Michiel Jonker, New York, 2001, pp. 381-383
- SCHNEIDER, Norbert, Jan Vermeer 1632.1675: Veiled Emotions, Cologne, 1994, p. 46
- WEBER, Gregor, "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 - WHEELOCK, Arthur K. Jr., Vermeer and the Art of Painting, New Haven and London, 1995
- WHEELOCK, Arthur K. Jr., Jan Vermeer, London 1981, p. 112
- de WINKEL, Marieke, "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

"'Woman with a Balance' provides us not with a warning but with comfort and reassurance; it makes us feel not vanity of life but its preciousness. Against the violent baroque agitation of the painting behind her, the woman asserts a quite, imperturbable calm, the quintessence of Vermeer's vision."
Edward A. Snow, A Study of Vermeer, 1979