Vermeer's Clients and Patrons

The scholar John Michael Montias has shed the most light upon Vermeer ’s social and economic situation. His seminal research has shown there were at least a small number of people who acquired Vermeer’s paintings during his lifetime or shortly thereafter and that at least one of these, a wealthy collector named Pieter Claez van Ruijven, may have been a significant patron, protecting Vermeer and his family during his lifetime from the vicissitudes of the national economy.

Below, in alphabetical order, is a list of those known to have owned Vermeer paintings during the 17th and early 18th c., with brief commentary for each. By clicking on the descriptive information about each painting in any collector’s inventory, you will view what the consensus of Vermeer specialists believe is the probable painting as it has survived to the present.

An overview of Vermeer's clients and patrons can be found at the bottom of this page. Overview of Vermeer's Clients

• Nicholas van Assendelft
• Willem van Berckel
• Hendrick van Buyten
• Diego Duarte
• Cornelezoon de Helt
• Jean or Johan Larson
• Johanes Renialme
• Pieter Claez van Ruijven
• Herman van Swoll

Overview of Vermeer's Clients and Patrons

After reviewing the records which Montias and others have uncovered, two facts become apparent. First, Vermeer's paintings commanded relatively high prices when compared to many of his contemporaries. The price of six hundred livres that the baker thought reasonable for his painting compares favorably with the six hundred livres that Gerrit Dou (1613-1635) asked from de Monconys  for his Woman in a Window, clearly also a painting with only one figure. Evidently, a painting by Vermeer had the same market value asa work by Dou, whom King Charles II of England had invited to become his court painter in 1660. Dou, one of Rembrandt’s prized students, commanded very high prices for his work throughout his career.

In addition, Vermeer apparently sold his paintings to a very few affluent clients who were capable of recognizing the extraordinary quality of his work, despite the fact that his fame was not nearly as widespread as other some Dutch masters of the time,including Dou or Gerrit Ter Borch. During his life, Vermeer's fame did not generally reach much farther than nearby The Hague. Nonetheless, word of the artist's talent was passed from one connoisseur to another in a relatively strict circle. Other than the six occasional but distinguished buyers of a single work, only Van Ruijven could possibly be called a patron. The Delft baker, Pieter Van Buyten, had purchased one painting from the artist while he was still alive and received another two after Vermeer's early death as payment for a huge debt the artist had accumulated. Three paintings acquired in such circumstances probably don’t establish Van Buyten as a true patron, either.

Apparently, Vermeer’s only real patron was Pieter Van Ruijven. Although the exact nature of Vermeer's relationship with him is subject to debate, it seems likely he had acquired at least some works directly from Vermeer. In fact, Van Ruijven's son-in-law Jacob Dissius had in his possession twenty-one Vermeer’s at the time of his death. If we accept Montias'  estimate of the total number of Vermeer's paintings to be from 44 to 54, this would mean that either Van Ruijven, or members of his family, had bought about one half of Vermeer's entire artistic output.

Montias himself believes that "the relationship between Van Ruijven and Vermeer went clearly beyond the routine contacts of an artist with a client." Van Ruijven lent Vermeer money. He witnessed the will of Vermeer’s sister Gertruy in her own house shortly before her death. More significantly, Van Ruijven's wife, Maria Knuijt, left Vermeer a conditional bequest of five hundred guilders in her will.¹ Such a testament was extremely unusual at the time.

However, the distinguished Vermeer specialist, Arthur Wheelock, has expressed reasonable doubts about the exact nature of their relationship. "The hypothesis that Van Ruijven was Vermeer's patron, although appealing, should be cautiously approached, for no document specifies that Vermeer ever painted for Van Ruijven. Moreover, no source confirms that Van Ruijven himself had any Vermeer paintings in his possession.  While Van Ruijven may have acquired painting from Vermeer, it seems unlikely that he assumed such an important a role in the artist's life as Montias suggests. Should Van Ruijven had been Vermeer's patron, one would expect that Balthasar de Monconys  would have visited Van Ruijven himself in 1663, rather than the baker, Hendrick van Buyten, upon hearing that Vermeer had no paintings  at home. Similarly,  the Vermeer enthusiast Pieter Teding van Berckhout would also have made an effort to see the Van Ruijvens' collection in 1669 on his two visits to Delft." Wheelock further states: "While it is probable that some of the twenty Vermeer paintings listed in the inventory of 1683 ( the inventory taken after the death of van Ruijven’s daughter) came from Van Ruijven, others may have been acquired by {his daughter} Magdalena, Jacob Dissius (his son-in-law), or his (Jacob’s) father, Abraham Jacobz Dissius, at a sale of twenty-six paintings from Vermeer's estate held at the Saint Luke's Guild Hall on 15 May, 1677." ²

While the precise relationship between Vermeer and van Ruijven may never be known, it is evident that the Van Ruijven family held Vermeer's work in high regards, having, at one time or the other, assembled a significant part of the master's oeuvre.

Nicholas van Assendelft (1630-1692)

He was a Delft alderman and member of the Council of Forty who had assembled a large collection containing many of the most important Dutch Masters. His collection included a portrait of himself by the fashionable Johannes Verkolje (1650-1693) as well as works by Jan Steen (c.1625-1679), Adriaen van Ostade (1610-1685) and Philips Wouwerman (1619-1668). In February, 1677, he was one of the judges who decided upon the disposition of Vermeer’s estate, specifically the 26 paintings the artist Jan Colombier bought from Vermeer’s widow, Catharina, to help settle an estate debt with the spinster Jannetje Stevens. In the 1711 inventory of Van Assendelft’s widow's property, "A damsel playing on the Clavichord by Vermeer" was appraised at forty guilders. There is no proof that Van Assendelft bought the painting directly from Vermeer, but this was not out of the question. Van Assendelft might be considered an occasional buyer of Vermeer rather than a client or patron.

Willem van Berckel (1679-1759)

Van Berckel was an art collector and Commissioner of the Finances of Holland who in the early 18th century had in his collection a  "Jupiter, Venus and Mercury, by J. ver Meer."The title may have been a misnomer, for this kind of painting almost always placed Virtue or Psyche in the picture rather than a Venus.  If this painting was by Vermeer, it surely would have been executed early in his career to complement the mythological theme of Diana and Her Companions. His art collection was inherited from his father Gerard van Berckel (c. 1620-1686) a one-time burgomaster of the city of Delft, and perhaps it was the senior van Berckel (c. 1620-1686) who had acquired the painting before his death.

Hendrick van Buyten (1632-1701)

Hendrick Ariaensz. van Buyten was a master baker, headman of the Bakers' Guild in 1668, prominent Delft citizen who owned a house on the south side of Choorstraat, possibly also one on Oude Delft. He probably owned at least three paintings by Vermeer. He had hanging on his wall a small painting of a single figure by Vermeer, perhaps the Woman in Blue  Reading a Letter or the Woman with a Water Pitcher. In 1663, the baker presumably told a visitor, the French aristocrat Balthasar de Monconys, that he paid 600 guilders for this painting, a price that seemed to shock de Monconys.In 1676, Van Buyten received two more paintings from Vermeer's wife Catharina Bolnes as a security for a substantial debt for bread of more than 600 guilders after the death of her husband.

Montias reckons that this sum covered about 8,000 pounds of white bread at the prices of the time, roughly three years' worth of supplies for a household of that size. As it was, van Buyten promised to give the paintings back to Catharina if she paid off the debt and another sum she owed him of 109 guilders,either by installments of 50 guilders a year or, following Maria Thins's death(when Catharina would presumably inherit), at 200 guilders a year plus 4 per cent interest. Van Buyten may have coveted these pictures but he put a high value on them, which showed his generosity to the artist's widow. In 1734 the Lady writing a Letter with her Maid was appraised as being worth 100 guilders, about a third of van Buyten's estimated price for it.

These paintings were described as "two personages one of which the one sits and writes a letter,"  probably, according to Montias, Woman Writing a Letter with her Maid and "a personage playing on a zither," presumably The Guitar Player. After the baker's death in 1701 the former was encountered "in the vestibule" as "a large painting by Vermeer." In another room hung "Two little pieces by Vermeer," one of which could have been the The Guitar Player, while the other likely was the small painting of the single figure.

Diego Duarte

In the inventory of his collection in 1682 there were listed more than two hundred paintings by masters such as Holbein, Raphael, Titian, Rubens and Van Dyck. Duarte was an immensely wealthy banker of Antwerp as well as an accomplished organist and composer. This evidently discerning art connoisseur also possessed "a young lady playing the clavecin, with accessories,by Vermeer." It appears that Constantijn Huygens junior, or senior, may have given  Duarte the painting. The younger Huygens regularly visited Duarte and admired his collection of paintings, while Duarte visited Holland. De Monconys also visited Duarte in Antwerp.

Cornelezoon de Helt

De Helt was a cooper and innkeeper in Delft. His estate in May, 1661announced that he had a Vermeer painting "in a black frame" hanging in the front hall of the Young Prince Inn. In the following June 14 the painting was auctioned for 20 guilders and 10 stuivers. While this sum was adequate (in 1642 a Delft clothe-worker earned close to one guider a day) for a painting in those years, it does not compare with the sum ,600 guilders which the Delft baker Van Buyten had said his Vermeer was worth to the skeptical French traveler and aristocrat, Balthasar de Monconys.  No one has identified the subject matter of this painting.

Jean or Johan Larson

Larson was a Hague/London sculptor who in an inventory drawn up in August1664 had a painting described as "a tronie by Vermeer."  It was valued at 10 guilders. He may have purchased this painting directly from Vermeer on a business trip to Delft in 1660.

Johannes Renialme

Renialme was an art dealer whose estate after his death in 1657 named a painting by Vermeer described as "A Grave Visitation by van der Meer." Its value was assessed at 20 guilders, which is not unreasonable price for a work by a relatively young painter (Vermeer was 24years old in late 1656).  Renialme worked in Amsterdam but also maintained close contacts with Delft where he bought paintings regularly.   He also had a house in Delft and had registered as an art dealer in Delft’s Guild of St. Luke in 1644.When Renialme died in 1657 he left four hundred pictures, many of which can be found in famous collections today such as Rembrandt's Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery. In addition to Rembrandt, a great number of  notable painters of the past and of the time was represented: Ter Borch,Steen, Potter, Hals, Dou, Rubens Titian Bassano, Holbein and Claude Lorrain.

Pieter Claez van Ruijven (1624-1674)

Van Ruijven's name is closely linked to the 21 paintings of Vermeers which were sold during the noted Dissius auction held in Amsterdam in 1669. As Montias has shown, Van Ruijven, a wealthy patrician collector who inherited his fortune from his family's brewery investments, most likely had acquired the bulk of this collection from the artist himself.  However, according to some Vermeer experts, the speculation that Van Ruijven was an intimate patron of Vermeer's work should be very cautiously approached. Van Ruijven had died in 1674, about 16 months before Vermeer himself. And it is generally held that Van Ruijven's collection was inherited by Jacob Dissius through his marriage to Van Ruijven's daughter Magdalena. Upon Dissius' early death the entire collection was sold in Amsterdam in 1696.

Beyond financial support and encouragement, Van Ruijven must have offered Vermeer entry into the world of discerning connoisseurs and powerful functionaries that constituted the highest end of the art scene in the Dutch Republic, and that gave access to patronage, fame, and other great artists. Nicolaes Paets, the Leiden lawyer who drew up the Van Ruijvens' will, was one such figure; Vermeer's The Astronomer may have been owned by the Paets family. The paragon of such enlightened interest was Constantijn Huygens, the long-time secretary to the stadhouders and polymathic dilettante in art and science. Huygens wrote knowledgeably about Netherlandish art of his time, and acted as something of a scout for The Hague circles, brokering Rembrandt's early success at the court in The Hague. No direct contact between Huygens and Vermeer is attested, and yet it is inconceivable that he would not have known of the nearby painter and his patron.

Two luminaries who knew Huygens in The Hague traveled specifically to Delft to seek out Vermeer,presumably on the recommendation of such figures as Spiering or Huygens 1663, the French diplomat Balthasat de Monconys spent much of his visit to the Netherlands vetting the local arts.On a brief visit to Delft he admired the tomb of William of Orange, and he returned a week later just to see Vermeer, possibly having been made aware that he had missed Delft's greatest artistic treasure. The visit was not a success;Vermeer was unable to show his guest a single work. De Monconys eventually saw only one painting, at a baker's (Van Buyten?), and he found the single-figured work excessively priced at 600 guilders. Pieter Teding van Berckhout, a patrician of The Hague with family connections to both the Huygens and Paets families, had better luck. Having traveled to Delft in the company , Huygens, he noted in his1669 diary, he visited "an excellent painter named Vermeer". Whether Huygens joined in the studio visit is likely but not recorded, but Van Berckhout was shown several curiositez. These appear to have impressed him sufficiently to warrant  a second visit to the ..celebrated painter named Vermeer;' during which Van Berckhout saw several "curious" work she described as "perspective[ s ]"

What emerges from these tiny glimpses of the great and the good courting Vermeer is a high culture in which access to the latest artistic knowledge depended not Jet on museums and exhibitions but on personal introductions, from patrons to painters and painters to patrons. Even in the Dutch Republic, where painters sold their works through myriad channels,from auctions and dealers' shops to fairs and lotteries, some of the most innovative and expensive art remained primarily accessible through private elite channels. Teding van Berkhout's use of the term curiositez for Vermeer's paintings is revealing in this respect, for it evokes the world of the cabinet of curiosities, those pre-modern private museums in which objects of natural history and art were shown in dose proximity and meaningful interaction. In Vermeer's time, the cabinet of curiosities, by then an established type of collection, still preserved the flavor of aristocratic origin.

from:
Mariët Westermann,"Vermeer and the Interior Imagination"
in Vermeer and the Dutch Interior,Madrid, 2003, pp. 225

More about Pieter van Ruijven

Van Ruijven paid sixteen thousand guilders, an absolutely astronomical sum to acquired land near Schiedam that brought with it the title of Lord of Spalanta in 1669. His acquisition may be considered as a case of "social rising" a phenomenon which was already under way by the end of the sixteenth century but reached its climax during the economically boom of the decades following the Treaty of Munster. Van Ruijven's father had owned a brewery, "The Ox," on the Voorstraat, which closed down in the mid-I65os, one of the many Delft breweries to succumb to out-of-town competition.

Van Ruijven was disqualified from high civic office because of his liberal Remonstrant Protestantism. He married well in 1653 to Maria de Knuijt who brought with her a considerable inteheritance and her desires must have been taken into account and more than one specialist believes that she may have determined to some degree or another the choice of subjects in Vermeer’s paintings. The couple eventually owned at least three Delft houses: two were in the Voorstraat and one on the Oude Delft. One of the Voorstraat houses was damaged in the Thunderclap, and van Ruijven claimed compensation for this. Later they moved to the Oude Delft house and though they were living In The Hague in July 16741 they apparently moved back to Delft, to the Voorstraat, shortly before his death, aged forty-nine, in 1674. In 1669 Van Ruijven had also bought land near Schiedam that brought with it the title of Lord of Spalant. Twelve years earlier. as noted, he had loaned Vermeer and Catharina 200 guilders for a year no doubt expecting to receive paintings in return. In 1665 Maria de Knuijt bequeathed Vermeer, excluding vermeer's wife Catharina, a legacy of 500 guilders.

It has been argued that Maria de Knuijt ensured that only Vermeer and not his Catholic wife would benefit from it, if Catharina survived him. But it may be too much to read any anti-Papist or anti-Jesuit feeling into this. particularly if Vermeer himself was regarded as a more-or -less converted Catholic; Maria may simply have wanted to assist the artist professional, and not provide funds for his relatives after his death. But the friendship her husband Pieter felt for the Vermeer family seems evident in the fact that, in 1670, he witnessed the last testament of Vermeer's sister Gertruy and her husband, the picture-framer Antony van der Wiel, who were described as 'we11-known to the notary and the witnesses'.

Herman van Swoll

An Amsterdam banker who, at least according to his estate that was settled in1699,   had acquired Vermeer's Allegory of Faith. The painting was described in an Amsterdam auction , item 25., as "a seated woman with several (symbolic and allegorical) meanings, representing the New Testament by Vermeer of Delft, vigorously and glowingly painted 400-0. " Four guilders hundred was a substantial sum to be paid for such a painting.