The Saint Luke's Guild of Delft

The lives of seventeenth-century Dutch painters, and certainly Vermeer's as well, were deeply effected by the Saint Luke's Guild. This professional artists' and artisans' trade organization regulated the commerce and production of potters, engravers, glass makers, tapestry weavers, faiencers, booksellers, sculptors and painters alike. Each city had its own self-governing guild which protected and promoted local production. The following brief outline describes the basic characteristics of the guild as well as Vermeer's association with it.

The drawing by Gerrit Lamberts (left) represents the facade of the newly constructed Saint Luke's Guild in Delft on the Voldersgracht.

Purpose

"In Delft, as in every other artistic center, artists and artisans came together primarily to limit the import of artworks from outside the city. This was generally accomplished by allowing only members of the local Guild of Saint Luke to sell paintings.  Auctions of paintings brought in from elsewhere were forbidden except at the annual fairs (in Delft, the main public room of the town hall was used for this purpose)." ¹ In exchange, member artists were required to pay an entrance fee of 6 guilders, which Vermeer himself, at the age of  21, was unable to pay in full due, probably, to his uncertain economic condition at the time.

Apprenticeship

Another obligation of future painter members was apprenticeship, which normally lasted from four to six years. The period spent in a recognized master-painter's workshop insured the young artist a thorough familiarization with the complexities of his craft. We must remember that in Vermeer's time much of the artist's materials had to be produced by the painter himself, and painting techniques were far more elaborate than those of most contemporary artists. For example, paint was not sold in commercial tubes as it is now. Each morning, the artist had to hand-mill the colors he intended for use in the day's painting. Hand-grinding paint presents a number of difficulties and requires much practice. This rather laborious task was often left to the apprentice.

Training was expensive. On the average, the family of a young apprentice who lived with his parents paid between 20 and 50 guilders per year. With board and lodging included, up to 100 guilder were needed to study with the more famous artists such as Rembrandt and Gerrit Dou. If we consider that school education generally cost two to six guilders a year and that apprenticeship generally lasted between four and six years, the financial burden of educating a young artist was considerable. Moreover, during the apprenticeship, the parents had to do without their son's potential earnings since during this period the apprentice could not sign and sell his own paintings instead; all the works he produced became property of that master. Evidently, the allure of significant future earnings must have been significant.

In the master's studio, the apprentice was exposed to the many thoughts, opinions and artistic theories which circulated with great rapidity from one artist's studio to the other's. A number of influential Dutch painters had traveled to Italy to study the works of the Italian Masters. Painters' studios were often lively places frequented by artists, patrons and men of culture. Animated artistic debates as well as exchanges of information concerning the art market were the norm. The apprentice, within the space of a few years, was personally exposed to an endless stream of ideas as well as all-important technical and commercial information which passed every day through the master's studio.

The young pupil was first instructed in drawing plaster casts of Classical sculpture. Many such casts can be seen in depictions of artists' studios; one, of a face, can be seen on the table in The Art of Painting by Vermeer. He next came to grips with the subtleties of representing a live model, and only afterwards did he begin to use brush and paint. He sometimes was allowed to work on the less-important sections of the master's own paintings, such as large areas of unmodulated color or monotonous areas of  foliage in the background. The master closely followed his pupil's progress and corrected him when needed. Some extremely talented artists were able to leave the master's studio within a few years. Rembrandt progressed so rapidly that he already had pupils of his own at the age of  21. As the apprentice's skills improved he worked on the more complex areas such as drapery and the secondary objects seen in a painting.

Once the apprentice had gained sufficient mastery, he was allowed to conceive and execute his own paintings, but could neither sign nor sell them. This could be done only after he had undergone the entrance exam of the guild. Another advantage of being a guild member was the permission to sell paintings of other artists as well in order to augment his earnings. Vermeer himself had a sizable stock of paintings in his studio at his death which, according to a statement by his widow, he had bought and was unable to sell, thus incurring in grave financial losses. Unfortunately, not even the possibility of selling others' works was enough to offset a sharp decline in the art market in the last ten years of Vermeer' life.

Although Vermeer must have undergone an apprenticeship like every other painter in Delft, there remains no evidence of whom he had studied with. For some time it was thought that Leonard Bramer, a native painter of Delft, might have been his master. This conjecture was based on more than one document that suggest a certain familiarity between Vermeer and Bramer. But Vermeer's artistry has little in common with that of Bramer's strongly Italianate style even though his initial subject matter was compatible with the Classical ideas of the elder painter. Recently, scholars have come to believe Vermeer studied outside of Delft, perhaps in Utrecht where his mother-in-law Maria Thins had relations with a well-established painter, Abraham Bloemaert, and other inhabitants of Utrecht. Maria Thins also possessed a number of paintings by Utrecht painters in her private collection which were to later appear in the background of Vermeer's interiors. In any case, no documents have come to light that testify Vermeer's presence either in Utrecht or Delft in the period in which he would have been an apprentice.

We do know, however, that Vermeer was admitted to the Delft Guild on the December 29th of 1653. He was not able to pay the entire entrance fee. His name can be seen on the register of the guild at number 77 (above). The names of Pieter de Hooch (80) and Carl Fabritius (75) also appear on the same document. On St. Luke's Day, October 18th 1662, the artists of Delft chose Vermeer to be the vice-dean of their guild, which would seem to be proof that at that time he must have been a respected and highly thought-of-artist and citizen. However, by the time Vermeer was elected headmaster, many of the artists resident in Delft had left for the more prosperous Amsterdam, and so his election may have had less significance than usually thought.³

The guild of St. Luke was dissolved in 1833, gradually fell into disrepair and was finally pulled down in 1879. In its place was constructed the Jan Vermeer elementary school which was recently cleared to make way for a scale reconstruction of the original guild. This building is intended to house the Vermeer Center, which at the moment is not operational. (website: http://www.vermeerdelft.nl)