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 *
roll your mouse over the 11 hot areas of the painting or the 8 special topics below.
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"'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

  •   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