WOMAN WITH A LUTE
(De luitspeler)
c. 1662-1664
oil on canvas
20 1/4 x 18 in. (51.4 x 45.7 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Bequest of Collis P. Huntington
an interactive analysis *
scroll your cursor over the 11 hot areas of the
painting or the 5 special topics below
(browsers: IE 4+, IE 5+,
IE 6+, NS 4+, NS 6+)
click here to listen to a MP3 audio-file of perido lute music:
Canaris
from the M.L. Lutebook, 26r
performed by Thomas Berghan
the following resources were used
to compile the text of this interactive study- BAILEY, Anthony, Vermeer: A View of Delft, New York, 2001
- 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
- NEVITT, H. Rodney Jr., "Vermeer and the Question of Love," in The Cambridge Companion to Vermeer, edited by Wayne Franits, Cambridge, 2001, pp. 89-110
- SCHNEIDER, Norbert, Jan Vermeer 1632.1675: Veiled Emotions, Cologne, 1994, p. 46
- WELU, A., "Vermeer: His Cartographic Sources." Art Bulletin 57, 1975, pp. 529-547
- WHEELOCK, Arthur K. Jr., Vermeer and the Art of Painting, New Haven and London, 1995<
- VERGARA, Alejandro, Vermeer and the Dutch Interior, Madrid,
2003
- WHEELOCK, Arthur K. Jr., Vermeer; The Complete Works, New York,1997
- WHEELOCK, Arthur K. Jr., Jan Vermeer, London 1981, p. 112
"Vermeer's ladies who hold a lute or guitar are not occupied with music making. They turn away; there is some momentary distraction in the air to draw their attention. They are near discovered playing and they never confront us. The fact is of interest for it illustrates not only Vermeer's temperamental preference, his distaste for anything obtrusively purposeful or demonstrative in his subject, but also the way in which it is governed his use of the resources of his school."
Lawrence Gowing, Vermeer, 1952