Some Considerations about "Young Woman Seated at a Virginal": Comparisons with Vermeer's Later Works 

(part one)

please consult the Sotheby's catalogue entry for detailed information in support of the authenticity of this painting.

for a full-size image of this painting, click here

On March 30, 2004 Sotheby's announced the sale of the Young Woman Seated at the Virginals (to be distinguished from the  London painting as of similar theme and title) as an authentic painting by Johannes Vermeer. This small unsigned canvas (about 8 x 10 inches or 25 x 20 centimeters) was first identified by modern collectors at an Amsterdam sale in 1814. Since 1960, it was held in the private collection of Baron Freddy Rolin in Brussels who passionately believed in the painting's authenticity. Even though the painting had never really stimulated more than lukewarm critical response, experts such as Hofstede de Groot, Phillip Hale, and P. T. A. Swillens had accepted it as an authentic Vermeer. Lawrence Gowing, who has perhaps written of one of  the most penetrating and influential interpretations of Vermeer art, only perfunctorily included a photograph of it in his 1952 monograph. He did not, however,  provide a comment about its artistic merits. However, Walter Liedtke, who curated the comprehensive Vermeer and the Delft School show in New York and London in 2001, decided at the very last minute to include in that exhibition although it was not included in the catalogue.

After more than 10 years of extensive research by a team of leading scholars¹ the painting has now been proposed as a secure addition to Vermeer's limited oeuvre.

The following visual study is not intended to either confirm nor negate the painting's authenticity, even less to determine its artistic merit, but rather to provide the average reader with rudimentary information and visual evidence in order to stimulate further inquiry. It must be clearly understood that the digital images used in this study  and on which the visual comparisons rely, should not be considered more than indicative of either Vermeer's authentic works nor the Young Woman Seated at a Virginal. In order to be properly experienced a painting must be viewed directly, hopefully, in reasonable viewing conditions which however, are not always possible.²

General Considertions on Style and Technique in Vermeer's Works of the 1670s

Recent laboratory analysis has offered ample proof that the Young Woman at a Virginal was a product of the 17th Century. Furthermore, it demonstrates that it clearly possesses qualities characteristic of certain methods and materials which Vermeer  employed. But despite the fact that laboratory analysis has narrowed both the time and place of the painting, it does not  prove that it is work entirely or even partially by Vermeer's own hand. Different scenarios exist that might explain the painting's origin: it was by the hand of Vermeer's followers (although none are known to have existed); or as more than one scholar has proposed, it was begun by Vermeer and finished by a later hand. Tying the physical evidence to Vermeer’s time is certainly a necessary condition, but not sufficient to establish a definitive connection to the master himself. To do this, scholars must consider other critical areas of information such as validating signatures and dates, establishing archival documentation, and evaluating the work’s painterly, artistic merits.

Those scholars who maintain the work's authenticity date it roughly about 1670 for both technical and stylistic reasons. This approximate date corresponds to the period in which Vermeer painted The Lacemaker, The Love Letter, The Guitar Player and Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid and slightly later, the two London pictures: A Lady Seated at a Virginal and A Lady Standing at a Virginal. In these paintings, Vermeer had reached in less than two decades of his brief career, an almost absolute command of pictorial means. Perhaps these late works are among his most daring and highly accomplished technical achievements. Paint is applied with utmost surety and there remains little or no sign of manual hesitation or artistic uncertainly which had accompanied some of his earlier works. Vermeer's brushwork displays such confidence that it borders on virtuosity. Complex visual problems such as the tour de force rendering a pearl necklace in the Guitar Player, are resolved with technical audacity unseen in Vermeer's earlier pictures. The numerous minor and major corrections which the artist had made in his earlier works and which can be detected with IR and x-ray photography, seem to be significantly absent in the works of the 1670s.

To appreciate Vermeer's level of technical confidence, it is enough to observe the golden medallion of the baroque guitar in the Guitar Player or the dots and dabs of paint which miraculously describe light raking across the golden frame of the same work.  In the Lacemaker, the contrast between the luminous dissolution of the still-life and the almost painful clarity of the young woman absorbed in her humble domestic chore constitutes, perhaps, one the most visually gratifying passages in all Vermeer's art.

As for self-confidence, the left-hand sleeve of the seated mistress in the Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid offers an excellent example. The mosaic of flat shapes carved with knife-like precision that stand in the place of what once were the folds of starched white cotton, have undergone such a severe process of abstraction that the sense of natural continuity is entirely lost. The signs and patterns left by the brush are so convincing that, although we may question the identity of what has been painted, we are never able to question their authenticity. Here, the world seems to have transformed itself into paint and Vermeer has become its undisputed master.

So bold is dancing brushwork of  the marble veining of the illuminated side of the virginal (right) of the  London Lady Seated at a Virginal, that it has been compared to Jackson Pollack's drip paintings.

Another distinctive characteristic of each of these late works is the inclusion of a conspicuous visual counterpoint to the figures. These inanimate counterpoints  enrich the narrative and visual effect of the whole. The golden frame of the Guitar Player, the still-life of the, themosaic-like clothes basket and broom in the Love Letter and the window panes and curtain of the Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid are examples. In these pictures, it would be difficult to dispute that Vermeer had become fully aware of his technical, if not artistic potentials.

"Young Woman at a Virginal"Compared

How favorable does the Young Woman at a Virginal compare in regards to technical proficiency and stylistic accomplishment with those authentic Vermeer's mentioned? The work's most obvious sign of technical proficiency can be observed in the young woman's satin dress. It is rendered with similar contrasting tones to those seen in the satin skirt of the  Guitar Player. The curious, cryptic and mosaic-like-shapes, which together compose the chiaroscuro structure of the satin material, are comparable to those of the same picture although they are somewhat less geometrical in character.

The yellow shawl, however, seems to fair somewhat worse. It is clearly one of the most important areas of the composition, but even though it was painted with the same  lead-tin yellow  pigment that Vermeer invariable adopted in the renderings of the characterize yellow jackets, can it reasonably sustain comparison with analogous passages of yellow in his later works? It's overall shape seems undifferentiated and the nature of the material, which is usually  distinguishable in the other pictures of the 1670's, is not so apparent. Is it made of wool, or cotton, or satin? If satin, the shadowed folds of the illuminated half of the garment are too dark to suggest the reflective character of that material. The heaviness of these shadows should be compared with the lightness and crispness those found in the Lacemaker and the Guitar Player. Even those who maintain the work's authenticity are not comfortable with this passage and affirm that if may have been re-worked by a later hand.

Significantly, the Baron Rolin Young Woman at the Virginals does not contain any important visual counterpoint characteristic of Vermeer's late paintings. Even though certain passages of the virginals are painted in a manner which recall  those of the London Lady Seated at a Virginal, they cannot be compared to the extraordinarily rendering in the London counterpart.

With the bare wall behind her, and the relatively simplified rendition of the virginal in front of her, the young girl seems not entirely comfortable in her environment, a conviction strengthened by the young girl'scurious gaze.

The painting's overall  color scheme, although perhaps suffering from an imperfect state of conservation, nonetheless consists in a  restricted  yellow/gray /flesh tone triad.  Significant areas of full strength natural ultramarine which are  present in most of his later works are conspicuously missing.