1.
Johannes Vermeer
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Johannes, Jan or Johan Vermeer was a Dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. Vermeer was a successful provincial genre painter in his lifetime. He evidently was not wealthy, leaving his wife and children in debt at his death, Vermeer worked slowly and with great care, and frequently used very expensive pigments. He is particularly renowned for his treatment and use of light in his work. Vermeer painted mostly domestic interior scenes and he was recognized during his lifetime in Delft and The Hague, but his modest celebrity gave way to obscurity after his death. He was barely mentioned in Arnold Houbrakens major source book on 17th-century Dutch painting, since that time, Vermeers reputation has grown, and he is now acknowledged as one of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age. Relatively little was known about Vermeers life until recently and he seems to have been devoted exclusively to his art, living out his life in the city of Delft. Until the 19th century, the sources of information were some registers, a few official documents. John Michael Montias added details on the family from the city archives of Delft in his Artists and Artisans in Delft, Johannes Vermeer was baptized in the Reformed Church on 31 October 1632. His father Reijnier Janszoon was a worker of silk or caffa. As an apprentice in Amsterdam, Reijnier lived on fashionable Sint Antoniesbreestraat, in 1615, he married Digna Baltus. The couple moved to Delft and had a daughter named Geertruy who was baptized in 1620, in 1625, Reijnier was involved in a fight with a soldier named Willem van Bylandt who died from his wounds five months later. Around this time, Reijnier began dealing in paintings, in 1631, he leased an inn, which he called The Flying Fox. In 1635, he lived on Voldersgracht 25 or 26, in 1641, he bought a larger inn on the market square, named after the Flemish town Mechelen. The acquisition of the inn constituted a financial burden. When Vermeers father died in October 1652, Vermeer took over the operation of the art business. In April 1653, Johannes Reijniersz Vermeer married a Catholic girl, the blessing took place in the quiet nearby village of Schipluiden. Vermeers new mother-in-law Maria Thins was significantly wealthier than he, according to art historian Walter Liedtke, Vermeers conversion seems to have been made with conviction
2.
Dresden
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Dresden is the capital city and, after Leipzig, the second-largest city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the border with the Czech Republic, Dresden has a long history as the capital and royal residence for the Electors and Kings of Saxony, who for centuries furnished the city with cultural and artistic splendour. The city was known as the Jewel Box, because of its baroque, the controversial American and British bombing of Dresden in World War II towards the end of the war killed approximately 25,000, many of whom were civilians, and destroyed the entire city centre. After the war restoration work has helped to reconstruct parts of the inner city, including the Katholische Hofkirche, the Zwinger. Since German reunification in 1990 Dresden is again a cultural, educational and political centre of Germany, the Dresden University of Technology is one of the 10 largest universities in Germany and part of the German Universities Excellence Initiative. The economy of Dresden and its agglomeration is one of the most dynamic in Germany and it is dominated by high-tech branches, often called as “Silicon Saxony”. The city is one of the most visited in Germany with 4,3 million overnight stays per year. The royal buildings are among the most impressive buildings in Europe, main sights are also the nearby National Park of Saxon Switzerland, the Ore Mountains and the countryside around Elbe Valley and Moritzburg Castle. The most prominent building in the city of Dresden is the Frauenkirche, built in the 18th century, the church was destroyed during World War II. The remaining ruins were left for 50 years as a war memorial, the church was rebuilt from 1994 to 2005. Although Dresden is a relatively recent city of Germanic origin followed by settlement of Slavic people, Dresdens founding and early growth is associated with the eastward expansion of Germanic peoples, mining in the nearby Ore Mountains, and the establishment of the Margraviate of Meissen. Its name etymologically derives from Old Sorbian Drežďany, meaning people of the forest, Dresden later evolved into the capital of Saxony. Around the late 12th century, a Slavic settlement called Drežďany had developed on the southern bank, another settlement existed on the northern bank, but its Slavic name is unknown. It was known as Antiqua Dresdin by 1350, and later as Altendresden, dietrich, Margrave of Meissen, chose Dresden as his interim residence in 1206, as documented in a record calling the place Civitas Dresdene. After 1270, Dresden became the capital of the margraviate and it was given to Friedrich Clem after death of Henry the Illustrious in 1288. It was taken by the Margraviate of Brandenburg in 1316 and was restored to the Wettin dynasty after the death of Valdemar the Great in 1319, from 1485, it was the seat of the dukes of Saxony, and from 1547 the electors as well. The Elector and ruler of Saxony Frederick Augustus I became King Augustus II the Strong of Poland in personal union and he gathered many of the best musicians, architects and painters from all over Europe to the newly named Royal-Polish Residential City of Dresden. His reign marked the beginning of Dresdens emergence as a leading European city for technology, during the reign of Kings Augustus II the Strong and Augustus III of Poland the Zwinger Royal Palace, the Hofkirche and the Frauenkirche were built
3.
Genre painting
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Genre painting, also called genre scene or petit genre, depicts aspects of everyday life by portraying ordinary people engaged in common activities. A work would often be considered as a genre work even if it could be shown that the artist had used a known member of his family. In this case it would depend on whether the work was likely to have intended by the artist to be perceived as a portrait—sometimes a subjective question. The depictions can be realistic, imagined, or romanticized by the artist, because of their familiar and frequently sentimental subject matter, genre paintings have often proven popular with the bourgeoisie, or middle class. Genre subjects appear in many traditions of art and these were part of a pattern of Mannerist inversion in Antwerp painting, giving low elements previously in the decorative background of images prominent emphasis. The generally small scale of these paintings was appropriate for their display in the homes of middle class purchasers. Often the subject of a painting was based on a popular emblem from an Emblem book. The merry company showed a group of figures at a party, other common types of scenes showed markets or fairs, village festivities, or soldiers in camp. In Italy, a school of painting was stimulated by the arrival in Rome of the Dutch painter Pieter van Laer in 1625. He acquired the nickname Il Bamboccio and his followers were called the Bamboccianti, whose works would inspire Giacomo Ceruti, Antonio Cifrondi, jean-Baptiste Greuze and others painted detailed and rather sentimental groups or individual portraits of peasants that were to be influential on 19th-century painting. Spain had a tradition predating The Book of Good Love of social observation and commentary based on the Old Roman Latin tradition, practiced by many of its painters and illuminators. More than a later, the Spanish artist Francisco de Goya used genre scenes in painting and printmaking as a medium for dark commentary on the human condition. His The Disasters of War, a series of 82 genre incidents from the Peninsular War, with the decline of religious and historical painting in the 19th century, artists increasingly found their subject matter in the life around them. In French art this was known as the Troubador style, in the second half of the century interest in genre scenes, often in historical settings or with pointed social or moral comment, greatly increased across Europe. Other 19th-century English genre painters include Augustus Leopold Egg, George Elgar Hicks, William Holman Hunt, scotland produced two influential genre painters, David Allan and Sir David Wilkie. Wilkies The Cottars Saturday Night inspired a work by the French painter Gustave Courbet. Famous Russian realist painters like Vasily Perov and Ilya Repin also produced genre paintings, in Germany, Carl Spitzweg specialized in gently humorous genre scenes, and in Italy Gerolamo Induno painted scenes of military life. Subsequently the Impressionists, as well as such 20th-century artists as Pierre Bonnard, Itshak Holtz, Edward Hopper, other notable 19th-century genre painters from the United States include George Caleb Bingham, William Sidney Mount, and Eastman Johnson
4.
Brothel
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A brothel or bordello is a place where people may come to engage in sexual activity with a prostitute, sometimes referred to as a sex worker. Technically, any premises where prostitution takes place qualifies as a brothel. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments sometimes describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub parlours, studios, sex work in a brothel is considered safer than street prostitution. Under English criminal law, a brothel is commonly referred to as a disorderly house, attitudes around the world to prostitution and how it should be regulated vary considerably, and have varied over time. Part of the impacts on whether the operation of brothels should be legal. On 2 December 1949, the United Nations General Assembly approved the Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons, the Convention came into effect on 25 July 1951 and as at December 2013 has been ratified by 82 states. The Convention seeks to combat prostitution, which it regards as incompatible with the dignity, parties to the Convention agreed to abolish regulation of individual prostitutes, and to ban brothels and procuring. Some countries not parties to the Convention also ban prostitution or the operation of brothels, various United Nations commissions, however, have differing positions on the issue. In the European Union, there is no policy and no consensus on the issue. The European Womens Lobby condemns prostitution as a form of male violence. In February 2014, the members of the European Parliament voted in a resolution, in favor of the Swedish Model of criminalizing the buying. Prostitution and the operation of brothels is illegal in many countries, such situations exist in many parts of the world, but the region most often associated with these policies is Asia. When brothels are illegal they may operate in the guise of a legitimate business, such as massage parlors. In other places, prostitution itself may be legal, but many activities which surround it are illegal and this is the situation, for example, in the United Kingdom, Italy and France. In a few countries, prostitution and operating a brothel is legal, the degree of regulation varies widely by country. Most of these countries allow brothels, at least in theory, in parts of Australia, for example, brothels are legal and regulated. Regulation includes planning controls and licensing and registration requirements, and there may be other restrictions, however, the existence of licensed brothels does not stop illegal brothels from operating. The Netherlands has one of the most liberal prostitution policies in the world, amsterdam is well known for its red-light district and is a destination for sex tourism
5.
The Astronomer (Vermeer)
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The Astronomer is a painting finished in about 1668 by the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. It is oil on canvas,51 cm x 45 cm, portrayals of scientists were a favourite topic in 17th-century Dutch painting and Vermeers oeuvre includes both this astronomer and the slightly later The Geographer. Both are believed to portray the man, possibly Antonie van Leeuwenhoek. A2017 study indicated that the canvas for the two came from the same bolt of material, confirming their close relationship. The astronomers profession is shown by the globe and the book on the table. The provenance of The Astronomer can be traced back to 27 April 1713, in 1940 it was seized from his hotel in Paris by the Nazi Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg für die Besetzten Gebiete after the German invasion of France. A small swastika was stamped on the back in black ink, the painting was returned to the Rothschilds after the war, and was acquired by the French state as giving in payment of inheritance taxes in 1983 and then exhibited at the Louvre since 1983. Liedtke, Walter A. Vermeer and the Delft School, Institutiones Astronomicae Geographicae by Adriaan Metius
6.
The Geographer
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The Geographer is a painting created by Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer in 1668–1669, and is now in the collection of the Städelsches Kunstinstitut museum in Frankfurt, Germany. It is closely related to Vermeers The Astronomer, for using the same model in the same dress. A2017 study indicated that the canvas for the two came from the same bolt of material. This is one of three paintings Vermeer signed and dated. Details of the face are slightly blurred, suggesting movement. His eyes are narrowed, perhaps squinting in the sunlight or an indication of intense thinking, Carr asserts that the painting depicts a flash of inspiration or even revelation. The drawn curtain on the left and the position of the carpet on the table—pushed back—are both symbols of revelation. He grips a book as if hes about to snatch it up to corroborate his ideas, the globe was published in Amsterdam in 1618 by Jodocus Hondius. The globe is turned toward the Indian Ocean, where the Dutch East India Company was then active, Vermeer used an impasto technique to apply pointillé dots, not to indicate light reflected more strongly on certain points but to emphasize the dull ochre cartouche frame printed on the globe. Since the globe can be identified, we know the decorative cartouche includes a plea for information for future editions—reflecting the theme of revelation in the painting, the sea chart on the wall of all the Sea coasts of Europe has been identified as one published by Willem Jansz Blaeu. This accuracy indicates Vermeer had a source familiar with the profession, the Astronomer, which seems to form a pendant with this painting, shows a similar, sophisticated knowledge of cartographic instruments and books, and the same young man modeled for both. That man himself may have been the source of Vermeers correct display of surveying and geographical instruments, Wheelock and others assert the model/source was probably Anthonie van Leeuwenhoek, a contemporary of Vermeer who was also born in Delft. The families of men were in the textile business, and both families had a strong interest in science and optics. A microscopist, van Leeuwenhoek was described after his death as being so skilled in navigation, astronomy, mathematics, philosophy and that one can certainly place him with the most distinguished masteres of the art. Another image of van Leeuwenhoek about 20 years later shows a face and straight nose. At the time Vermeer painted the two works, the scientist would have been about 36 years old and he would have been actively studying for his examination for surveyor, which he passed on February 4,1669. There is no evidence for any kind of relationship between the two men during Vermeers lifetime, although in 1676, van Leeuwenhoek was appointed a trustee for Vermeers estate. The pose of the figure in Vermeers painting takes up precisely the position of Faust in Rembrandts famous etching, according to Lawrence Gowing, similar arrangements can be found in drawings by Nicolaes Maes
7.
Gerard ter Borch
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Gerard ter Borch, also known as Gerard Terburg, was a Dutch genre painter who lived in the Dutch Golden Age. Gerard ter Borch was born in December 1617 in Zwolle in the province of Overijssel in the Dutch Republic and he received an excellent education from his father Gerard ter Borch the Elder, also an artist, and developed his talent very early. The inscription on a study of a head proves that Ter Borch was at Amsterdam in 1632, duysters influence can be traced in a picture bearing the date 1638, in the lonides Bequest. In 1634 he studied under Pieter de Molijn in Haarlem, a record of this Haarlem period is the Consultation at the Berlin Gallery. In 1635 he was in London, and subsequently he travelled in Germany, France, Spain and his sister Gesina also became a painter. It is certain that he was in Rome in 1641, when he painted the portraits on copper of Jan Six, A Young Lady. He seems to have resided for a time in Haarlem, but he settled in Deventer. He died at Deventer in 1681, Ter Borch is a significant painter of genre subjects. He is known for his rendering of texture in draperies, for example in The Letter and in The Gallant Conversation, Ter Borchs works are comparatively rare, about eighty have been catalogued. Six of these are at the Hermitage, six at the Berlin Museum, five at the Louvre, four at the Dresden Museum, a pair of portraits are located at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington D. C. highlighted in 2010 by Blake Gopnik. The artists painting The Suitors Visit, c,1658, oil on canvas,80 x 75 cm in the Andrew W. Mellon Collection, was used on the cover of Marilyn Stokstads second edition of Art History. Gerard ter Borchs paintings This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Ter Borch. Gerard Terburg et sa famille, by Emile Michel Der künstlerische Entwickelungsgang des C
8.
The Procuress (Dirck van Baburen)
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The Procuress is the name given to a number of similar paintings by the Dutch Golden Age painter Dirck van Baburen. The painting is in the Caravaggiesque style of the Utrecht school, the painting shows three figures, a prostitute on the left, the client in the middle and the procuress on the right pointing to her palm to indicate that she is expecting payment. The client is holding a coin between his fingers as he puts his arm around the prostitute, who is playing a lute, the painting is an example of the popular genre known as Bordeeltjes, or brothel scenes. The cropped, close-up figures close to the plane against a flat blank background are typical of Utrecht Caravaggism. There are at least three versions of the painting, the versions in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston are attributed to Dirck van Baburen or his studio. One copy of the painting was owned by Maria Thins, mother-in-law of Johannes Vermeer, a copy owned by the Courtauld Institute in London has been identified as the work of the forger Han van Meegeren. This was featured in the episode of the BBC TV series. One of these paintings was owned by Vermeers mother-in-law, and it may have been an influence on one of his own paintings on a similar subject. It also appears in the background of two of Vermeers later paintings, The Concert and Lady Seated at a Virginal, in both of these later paintings the blatant lust depicted by Baburen is contrasted with the genteel, but erotically charged, middle-class world occupied by Vermeers women. The contrast between the images may also imply a more general association between music and love, Vermeer sets up a series of contrasts between his own delicate, restrained style and Baburens vulgar realism. According to Michael Wayne Cole and Mary Pardo this represents Vermeers own move away from such low-life subjects, the older, cruder style of Baburen is relegated to the background, eclipsing it with the more modern kind of genteel subject that Vermeer would soon paint exclusively. In 1960, Geoffrey Webb presented a version of the painting to the Courtauld Institute, at the end of the Second World War, he had been an allied officer in Europe investigating art works looted by the Nazis. He believed it was a fake painted by Han van Meegeren, in his own defense, van Meegeren claimed that the painting had been bought in an antique shop by his wife. A spokesperson for the stated that they were surprised by the results. Following this, the BBC TV programme Fake or Fortune conducted a further investigation, the resulting film was first shown July 2011. Philip Mould and Fiona Bruce traveled to Amsterdam where they obtained samples of the used by van Meegeren. These included a resin which turned out to be Bakelite. The use of Bakelite had the effect of hardening the paint, chemical analysis showed Bakelite in the Courtauld painting, thus confirming that it was a modern forgery
9.
Dirck van Baburen
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Van Baburen was a Dutch painter and one of the Utrecht Caravaggisti. Dirck van Baburen was probably born in Wijk bij Duurstede, and he was also known as Teodoer van Baburen and Theodor Baburen. The earliest reference to the artist is in the 1611 records of the Utrecht Guild of St. Luke as a pupil of Paulus Moreelse, sometime between 1612 and 1615 he travelled to Rome. There, he collaborated with fellow countryman David de Haen and befriended the close follower of Caravaggio, Baburen was one of the earliest artists to belong to the group of Dutch-speaking artists active in Rome in the seventeenth-century known as the Bentvueghels, his nickname was Biervlieg. In late 1620 Baburen returned to Utrecht, where he began painting genre scenes and he was buried on 28 February 1624 in the Buurkerk, a medieval church which now houses the Museum Speelklok. Around 1629, Constantijn Huygens noted Baburen as one of the important Dutch painters active in the decades of the seventeenth century. Dirck van Baburens career was short, and only a few of his paintings are known today and he mostly painted religious subjects in Rome, including the San Pietro in Montorio Entombment that is indebted to Caravaggios version of the same subject in the Vatican Museums. Baburen also painted a Capture of Christ for Scipione Borghese and Christ Washing the Feet of the Apostles for Vincenzo Giustiniani. The Utrecht works made between 1621 as 1624, the years of Baburens career, merged the visual characteristics learnt from Caravaggio and Manfredi into genre, mythological. He was among the first artists to popularize genre subjects such as musicians, one of his best-known works is The Procuress. It depicts a man offering a coin for the services of a prostitute while an old woman. This painting was owned by Johannes Vermeers mother-in-law and appears in two of artists works, The Concert and Woman Seated at a Virginal. Han van Meegeren forged a copy of work which he may have intended to use as a prop in his forgeries of Vermeer. He painted several musicians, many of which contain a self-portrait. Oxford University Press, March 15,2007, brown, Christopher, The Utrecht Caravaggisti, in Gods, Saints & Heroes, Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt. National Gallery of Art, Washington D. C, franits, Wayne, Dutch Seventeenth-Century Genre Painting. Levine, David A. Schildersbent, Grove Art Online, slatkes, L. J. Dirck van Baburen, A Dutch Painter in Utrecht and Rome. Slive, Seymour, Dutch Painting 1600-1800 ISBN 0-300-06418-7, Vermeer and The Delft School, a full text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on Dirck van Baburen
10.
Maria Thins
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Maria Thins was the mother-in-law of Johannes Vermeer and a member of the Gouda Thins family. In 1622 she married Reynier Bolnes, a prominent and prosperous brickmaker, in 1635 the marriage deteriorated, her sister found her crying in bed after her husband had beaten her. The couple moved to house, where Wouter Crabeth had lived. There Bolnes had his dinner in the front room, together with his son, while he refused to talk to her, at one time her daughter Cornelia was locked up by her father and in 1641 Maria Thins decided to move to Delft, where her brother lived. Her husband refused to divorce her, but in 1649 she received a sum of money from him. Her daughter Cornelia died in 1643, in 1653 Catharina married Johannes Vermeer in Schipluiden but it is not exactly known when the couple moved in at her rather spacious house on Oude Langendijk. Vermeer had his atelier on the front side of the second floor, Maria Thins apparently played an important role in their life. She was a devotee of the Jesuit order in the nearby Catholic Church, and their third son was called Ignatius, after the founder of the Jesuit Order. It is not known if the children were baptized in the Catholic Church, in 1664 her son Willem, a jobless bachelor, was locked up in an institution after an argument with his mother, and for attacking his pregnant sister with a stick. In 1665 Maria Thins was entrusted with her sons property and she was not required by law to limit his share to the legal minimum, but she mentioned that he had been calling her names since his youth. In 1672 Maria Thins got into difficulties, her land near Schoonhoven was flooded to prevent the French army crossing the Dutch Water Line. In 1675, when Vermeer went on several trips for his mother-in-law, first to Gouda, when her husband had died. There Vermeer borrowed money by using her name. Shortly thereafter Vermeer suffered what was referred to as a frenzy, in the words of his wife and she attributed this to stress caused by all their financial difficulties. After Vermeers death, Maria Thins stated that she used her income to support the struggling painter. For her help she received The Art of Painting, one of the finest, most mysterious and famous paintings in the history of Western Art. In 1676 she lived in the Hague but moved back to Delft where, upon her death, she was buried in the Protestant Old Church on 27 December 1680, the burial record states that she died as the widow of Rijnier Bolnes. Her daughter Catharina moved to Breda, Catharina Bollenes received Holy Oil, according to the records of the Roman Catholic parish of St Joseph, before being buried on 30 December 1687
11.
Doublet (clothing)
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The doublet was hip length or waist length and worn over the shirt or drawers. Until the end of the 15th century, the doublet was worn under another layer of clothing such as a gown, mantle, originally it was a mere stitched and quilted lining, worn under a hauberk or cuirass to prevent bruising and chafing. Doublets were frequently opened to the waistline in a deep V, the edges might be left free or laced across the shirt front. If there was left it might be filled with a stomacher. By the 1520s, the edges of the doublet met at the center front, then, like many other originally practical items in the history of mens wear, from the late 15th century onward it became elaborated enough to be seen on its own. A similar jacket, the sherwani, is today in India. Throughout the 300 years of its use, the served the same purpose, to give fashionable shape and padding to the body, to support the hose by providing ties. The only thing that changed about the doublet over its history was its style, the doublet developed from the padded garments worn under armour, such as the gambeson, aketon, and arming doublet. Doublets of the 14th and 15th centuries were generally hip-length, sometimes, shorter, worn over the shirt and hose, with a houppelande or other form of overgown. From the late 14th century, doublets were cut and padded to give the wearer an egg-shaped or pigeon-breasted silhouette, in the early Elizabethan period, doublets were padded over the belly with bombast in a pouter pigeon or peascod silhouette. Sleeve attachments at the shoulder were disguised by decorative wings, tabs, or piccadills, padding gradually fell out of fashion again, and the doublet became close-fitting with a deep V-waistline. More images, Edward VI in an elaborately trimmed and pinked, long-skirted late Tudor doublet under a crimson gown with hanging sleeves, martin Frobisher in a peascod-bellied doublet under a buff jerkin. By the 17th century, doublets were short-waisted, a typical sleeve of this period was full and slashed to show the shirt beneath, a later style was full and paned or slashed to just below the elbow and snug below. Decorative ribbon points were pulled through eyelets on the breeches and the waist of the doublet to keep the breeches in place, and were tied in elaborate bows. 1500–1550 in fashion 1550–1600 in fashion 1600–1650 in fashion 1650-1700 in fashion Janet Arnold, Patterns of Fashion, the cut and construction of clothes for men and women 1560-1620, pajama 1985
12.
Self-portrait
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A self-portrait is a representation of an artist that is drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by that artist. With better and cheaper mirrors, and the advent of the panel portrait, Portrait of a Man in a Turban by Jan van Eyck of 1433 may well be the earliest known panel self-portrait. He painted a portrait of his wife, and he belonged to the social group that had begun to commission portraits. The genre is venerable, but not until the Renaissance, with increased wealth and interest in the individual as a subject, a self-portrait may be a portrait of the artist, or a portrait included in a larger work, including a group portrait. Many painters are said to have included depictions of specific individuals, including themselves, in these works, the artist usually appears as a face in the crowd or group, often towards the edges or corner of the work and behind the main participants. Rubenss The Four Philosophers is a good example and this culminated in the 17th century with the work of Jan de Bray. Many artistic media have used, apart from paintings, drawings. In the famous Arnolfini Portrait, Jan van Eyck is probably one of two figures glimpsed in a mirror – a surprisingly modern conceit. The Van Eyck painting may have inspired Diego Velázquez to depict himself in view as the painter creating Las Meninas, as the Van Eyck hung in the palace in Madrid where he worked. This was another modern flourish, given that he appears as the painter, in what may be one of the earliest childhood self-portraits now surviving, Albrecht Dürer depicts himself as in naturalistic style as a 13-year-old boy in 1484. In later years he appears variously as a merchant in the background of Biblical scenes, leonardo da Vinci may have drawn a picture of himself at the age of 60, in around 1512. The picture is often reproduced as Da Vincis appearance, although this is not certain. In the 17th century, Rembrandt painted a range of self-portraits, family and professional group paintings, including the artists depiction, became increasingly common from the 17th century on. From the later 20th century on, video plays a part in self-portraiture. Vigée-Lebrun painted a total of 37 self-portraits, many of which were copies of earlier ones, Women artists have historically embodied a number of roles within their self-portraiture. Most common is the artist at work, showing themselves in the act of painting, or at least holding a brush and palette. Often, the viewer if the clothes worn were those they normally painted in. Images of artists at work are encountered in Ancient Egyptian painting, one of the first self-portraits was made by the Pharaoh Akhenatens chief sculptor Bak in 1365 BC
13.
The Art of Painting
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The Art of Painting, also known as The Allegory of Painting, or Painter in his Studio, is a 17th-century oil on canvas painting by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. It is owned by the Austrian Republic and is on display in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and this illusionistic painting is one of Vermeers most famous. In 1868 Thoré-Bürger, known today for his rediscovery of the work of painter Johannes Vermeer, svetlana Alpers describes it as unique and ambitious, Walter Liedtke as a virtuoso display of the artists power of invention and execution, staged in an imaginary version of his studio. According to Albert Blankert No other painting so flawlessly integrates naturalistic technique, brightly illuminated space, many art historians think that it is an allegory of painting, hence the alternative title of the painting. Its composition and iconography make it the most complex Vermeer work of all, the painting depicts an artist painting a woman dressed in blue posing as a model in his studio. The subject is standing by a window and a map of the Low Countries hangs on the wall behind. It is signed to the right of the girl I Ver, most experts assume it was executed sometime between 1665/1668, but some suggest the work could have been created as late as 1670–1675. In 1663 Vermeer had been visited by Balthasar de Monconys, but had no painting to show, Vermeer obviously liked the painting, he never sold it during his lifetime. According to Alpers it stands as a kind of summary and assessment of what has been done, the painting has only two figures, the painter and his subject, a woman with downcast eyes. The painter was thought to be a self-portrait of the artist, the painter sits in front of the painting on the easel, where you can see the sketch of the crown. He is dressed in an elegant black garment with cuts on the sleeves and he has short puffy breeches and orange stockings, an expensive and fashionable garment that is also found in other works of the time, as in a well-known self-portrait by Rubens. The tapestry and the chair, both repoussoirs, lead the viewer into the painting, as in The Allegory of Faith the ceiling can be seen. Experts attribute symbols to various aspects of the painting, the representation of the marble tiled floor and the splendid golden chandelier are examples of Vermeers craftsmanship and show his knowledge of perspective. Each object reflects or absorbs light differently, getting the most accurate rendering of material effects, the map, remarkable is the representation of light on it, shows the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands, flanked by 20 views of prominent Dutch cities. It was published by Claes Janszoon Visscher in 1636 and this map, but without the city views on the left and right can be seen on paintings by Jacob Ochtervelt and Nicolaes Maes. Similar maps were found in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and in the Swedish Skokloster. In the top left of the map two women can be seen, one bearing a cross-staff and compasses, while the other has a palette, brush, Vermeer had a theoretical interest for painting. However, according to Ripa History should look back and not down as in this painting, following Vermeers contemporary Gerard de Lairesse, interested in French Classicism and Ripa, there is another explanation, he mentions history and poetry as the main resources of a painter
14.
Three-dimensional space
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Three-dimensional space is a geometric setting in which three values are required to determine the position of an element. This is the meaning of the term dimension. In physics and mathematics, a sequence of n numbers can be understood as a location in n-dimensional space, when n =3, the set of all such locations is called three-dimensional Euclidean space. It is commonly represented by the symbol ℝ3 and this serves as a three-parameter model of the physical universe in which all known matter exists. However, this space is one example of a large variety of spaces in three dimensions called 3-manifolds. Furthermore, in case, these three values can be labeled by any combination of three chosen from the terms width, height, depth, and breadth. In mathematics, analytic geometry describes every point in space by means of three coordinates. Three coordinate axes are given, each perpendicular to the two at the origin, the point at which they cross. They are usually labeled x, y, and z, below are images of the above-mentioned systems. Two distinct points determine a line. Three distinct points are either collinear or determine a unique plane, four distinct points can either be collinear, coplanar or determine the entire space. Two distinct lines can intersect, be parallel or be skew. Two parallel lines, or two intersecting lines, lie in a plane, so skew lines are lines that do not meet. Two distinct planes can either meet in a line or are parallel. Three distinct planes, no pair of which are parallel, can meet in a common line. In the last case, the three lines of intersection of each pair of planes are mutually parallel, a line can lie in a given plane, intersect that plane in a unique point or be parallel to the plane. In the last case, there will be lines in the plane that are parallel to the given line, a hyperplane is a subspace of one dimension less than the dimension of the full space. The hyperplanes of a space are the two-dimensional subspaces, that is
15.
Oriental rug
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An oriental rug is a heavy textile, made for a wide variety of utilitarian and symbolic purpose, produced in “Oriental countries” for home use, local sale, and export. Oriental carpets can be woven or flat woven without pile, using various materials such as silk, wool. Since the High Middle Ages, oriental rugs have been a part of their cultures of origin, as well as of the European and, later on. Geographically, oriental rugs are made in a referred to as the “Rug Belt”, which stretches from Morocco across North Africa, the Middle East. It includes countries such as northern China, Tibet, Turkey, Iran, the Maghreb in the west, the Caucasus in the north, people from different cultures, countries, racial groups and religious faiths are involved in the production of oriental rugs. The beginning of carpet weaving remains unknown, as carpets are subject to use, deterioration, there is little archaeological evidence to support any theory about the origin of the pile-woven carpet. The earliest surviving fragments are spread over a wide geographic area. Woven rugs probably developed from earlier floor coverings, made of felt, flat-woven rugs are made by tightly interweaving the warp and weft strands of the weave to produce a flat surface with no pile. The technique of weaving carpets further developed into a known as extra-weft wrapping weaving, a technique which produces soumak. Loop weaving is done by pulling the strings over a gauge rod. The rod is then removed, leaving the loops closed, or the loops are cut over the protecting rod. Typically, hand-woven pile rugs are produced by knotting strings of thread individually into the warps, the fabric is then further stabilized by weaving in one or more strings of weft, and compacted by beating with a comb. It seems likely that knotted-pile carpets have been produced by people who were familiar with extra-weft wrapping techniques. Probably the oldest existing texts referring to carpets are preserved in writing on clay tablets from the royal archives of the kingdom of Mari. The Akkadian word for rug is mardatu, and specialist rug weavers referred to as kāşiru are distinguished from other specialized professions like sack-makers. Palace inventories from the archives of Nuzi, from the 15th/14th century BC, there are documentary records of carpets being used by the ancient Greeks. Homer writes in Ilias XVII,350 that the body of Patroklos is covered with a “splendid carpet”, in Odyssey Book VII and X “carpets” are mentioned. Around 400 BC, the Greek author Xenophon mentions “carpets” in his book “Anabasis” and it is unknown whether these were flatweaves or pile weaves, as no detailed technical information is provided in the texts
16.
Kelim
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Kilims are flat tapestry-woven carpets or rugs produced from the Balkans to Pakistan. Kilims can be decorative or can function as prayer rugs. Modern kilims are popular floor-coverings in Western households, the term kilim originates from the Persian gelīm where it means to spread roughly, perhaps of Mongolian origin. Like pile carpets, kilim have been produced since ancient times, the weave is almost identical with that of modern kilims, and has about fourteen threads of warp and sixteen threads of weft to the inch. The pattern consists of stripes of blue, green, brownish yellow. With this one exception, so peculiarly preserved, there are very few over a century old. Kilims are produced by tightly interweaving the warp and weft strands of the weave to produce a surface with no pile. Kilim weaves are tapestry weaves, technically weft-faced plain weaves, that is, when the end of a color boundary is reached, the weft yarn is wound back from the boundary point. Thus, if the boundary of a field is a vertical line. For this reason, most kilims can be classed as slit woven textiles, the slits are beloved by collectors, as they produce very sharp-etched designs, emphasizing the geometry of the weave. Weaving strategies for avoiding slit formation, such as interlocking, produce a more blurred design image, the weft strands, which carry the visible design and color, are almost always wool, whereas the hidden warp strands can be either wool or cotton. The warp strands are only visible at the ends, where they emerge as the fringe and this fringe is usually tied in bunches, to ensure against loosening or unraveling of the weave. Many motifs are used in Turkish kilims, each with many variations, a few examples are illustrated here, with meanings as described by Güran Erbek in Kilim. A widely used motif is the elibelinde, a female figure, motherhood. Other motifs express the tribal weavers desires for protection of their families flocks from wolves with the mouth or the wolfs foot motif. Several motifs hope for the safety of the family from the evil eye, which could be divided into four with a cross symbol, or averted with the symbol of a hook. Such an amulet woven into a rug is not a picture of the thing itself, it actually is an amulet, other motifs symbolised fertility, as with the trousseau chest motif, or the explicit fertility motif. The motif for running water similarly depicts the resource literally, the desire to tie a family or lovers together could be depicted with a fetter motif
17.
Medal
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A medal may be awarded to a person or organization as a form of recognition for sporting, military, scientific, academic, or various other achievements. Military awards and decorations are more precise terms for types of state decoration. Medals may also be created for sale to commemorate particular individuals or events, an artist who creates medals or medallions is called a medallist or medalist. There are also devotional medals which may be worn for religious reasons, Medals have long been popular collectible items either as a variety of exonumia or of militaria. Medallions may also be called table medals because they are too large to be worn and can only be displayed on a wall, table top, desk, the word medallion has the same ultimate derivation, but this time through the Italian medaglione, meaning large medal. The main or front surface of a medal is termed the obverse, the reverse, or back surface of the medal, is not always used and may be left blank or may contain a secondary design. It is not uncommon to only an artistic rendering on the obverse, while all details. The rim is only occasionally employed to display an inscription such as a motto, privy mark, engraver symbol, assayer’s marking. Medals that are intended to be hung from a ribbon also include a suspension piece at the crest with which to loop a suspension ring through. It is through the ring that a ribbon is run or folded so the medal may hang pendent, Medals pinned to the breast use only a small cut of ribbon that is attached to a top bar where the brooch pin is affixed. Top bars may be hidden under the ribbon so they are not visible, be a device from which the ribbon attaches. Some top bars are elaborate and contain a whole design unto themselves, Medals that are made with inexpensive material might be gilded, silver-plated, chased, or finished in a variety of other ways to improve their appearance. Medals have also made of rock, gemstone, ivory, glass, porcelain, terra cotta, coal, wood, paper, enamel, lacquerware. Honorary awards, as a button, which it is custom to give the kings kinsmen. Roman emperors used both military awards of medals, and political gifts of medallions that were very large coins, usually in gold or silver. Both these and actual golden coins were often set as pieces of jewellery, the bracteate is a type of thin gold medal, usually plain on the reverse, found in Northern Europe from the so-called Dark Ages or Migration Period. They often have suspension loops and were intended to be worn on a chain as jewellery. They imitate, at a distance, Roman imperial coins and medallions, the surviving example is mounted for wearing as jewellery
18.
Leaves
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A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant and is the principal lateral appendage of the stem. The leaves and stem together form the shoot, Leaves are collectively referred to as foliage, as in autumn foliage. Although leaves can be seen in different shapes, sizes and textures, typically a leaf is a thin, dorsiventrally flattened organ, borne above ground. Most leaves have distinctive upper surface and lower surface that differ in colour, hairiness, broad, flat leaves with complex venation are known as megaphylls and the species that bear them, the majority, as broad-leaved or megaphyllous plants. In others, such as the clubmosses, with different evolutionary origins, some leaves, such as bulb scales are not above ground, and in many aquatic species the leaves are submerged in water. Succulent plants often have thick juicy leaves, but some leaves are without major photosynthetic function and may be dead at maturity, as in some cataphylls, furthermore, several kinds of leaf-like structures found in vascular plants are not totally homologous with them. Examples include flattened plant stems called phylloclades and cladodes, and flattened leaf stems called phyllodes which differ from both in their structure and origin. Many structures of plants, such as the phyllids of mosses and liverworts and even of some foliose lichens. Leaves are the most important organs of most vascular plants and these are then further processed by chemical synthesis into more complex organic molecules such as cellulose, the basic structural material in plant cell walls. The plant must therefore bring these three together in the leaf for photosynthesis to take place. Once sugar has been synthesized, it needs to be transported to areas of growth such as the plant shoots and roots. Vascular plants transport sucrose in a tissue called the phloem. The phloem and xylem are parallel to each other but the transport of materials is usually in opposite directions. Within the leaf these vascular systems branch to form veins which supply as much as the leaf as possible and they are arranged on the plant so as to expose their surfaces to light as efficiently as possible without shading each other, but there are many exceptions and complications. For instance plants adapted to windy conditions may have pendent leaves, such as in many willows, the flat, or laminar, shape also maximises thermal contact with the surrounding air, promoting cooling. Functionally, in addition to photosynthesis the leaf is the site of transpiration and guttation. Many gymnosperms have thin needle-like or scale-like leaves that can be advantageous in cold climates with frequent snow and these are interpreted as reduced from megaphyllous leaves of their Devonian ancestors. For xerophytes the major constraint is not light flux or intensity, some window plants such as Fenestraria species and some Haworthia species such as Haworthia tesselata and Haworthia truncata are examples of xerophytes. and Bulbine mesembryanthemoides
19.
Cittern
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The cittern or cithren is a stringed instrument dating from the Renaissance. Modern scholars debate its exact history, but it is accepted that it is descended from the Medieval citole. It looks much like the modern-day flat-back mandolin and the modern Irish bouzouki and its flat-back design was simpler and cheaper to construct than the lute. It was also easier to play, smaller, less delicate, played by all classes, the cittern was a premier instrument of casual music-making much as is the guitar today. The cittern is one of the few metal-strung instruments known from the Renaissance period and it generally has four courses of strings, one or more course being usually tuned in octaves, though instruments with more or fewer courses were made. The tuning and narrow range allow the player a number of chord shapes useful for both simple song accompaniment and dances, however much more complex music was written for it. Its bright and cheerful timbre make it a valuable counterpoint to gut-strung instruments, the Spanish bandurria, still used today, is a similar instrument. DUMAIN, The head of a bodkin, BIRON, A Deaths face in a ring. The leading 18th century Swedish songwriter Carl Michael Bellman played mostly on the cittern, in Germany the cittern survives under the names Waldzither and Lutherzither. The last name comes from the belief that Martin Luther played this instrument, also, the names Thüringer Waldzither in Thüringer Wald, Harzzither in the Harz mountains, Halszither in German-speaking Switzerland are used. There is a tendency in modern German to interchange the words for cittern, the term waldzither came into use around 1900, to distinguish citterns from zithers. The cittern family survives as the Corsican cetara and the Portuguese guitar, the guitarra portuguesa is typically used to play the popular traditional music known as fado. Chitarra Italiana Cithara Italica English guitar Stringed instrument tunings Gregory Doc Rossi Martina Rosenberger Musics Delight on the Cithren, John Playford. Renovata Cythara, The Renaissance Cittern Pages Stefan Sobell website G.1550 at the National Music Museum Decorated Cittern by Joachim Tielke, Hamburg, ca.1685 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
20.
Waldstein family
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The House of Waldstein is a Bohemian noble family, named after Valdštejn Castle near Turnov. The Waldstein noble family originated from the medieval Markvartici clan, which gained influence at the Přemyslid court in Prague under King Ottokar II of Bohemia, from about 1260, Burgrave Jaroslav of Hruštice had Valdštejn Castle erected. His son Zdeněk was the first documented Lord of Valdštejn, allegedly he accompanied King Ottokar II on his Prussian crusade, upon his death, his possessions were divided among his numerous descendants. The Waldsteins again appeared in life from the 15th century onwards. Albrecht von Wallenstein himself came from a modest cadet branch which since 1548 held the estate of Heřmanice. After the 1620 Battle of White Mountain, he purchased several confiscated lordships of his Protestant relatives, in 1628, he was one of the first among the Bohemian nobility to be promoted to Graf status, then to Reichsgraf two years later. After uniting with the line of another Bohemian noble family, the Lords of Vartenberk. After World War II, the Waldsteins, then almost completely Germanized, were expelled from Czechoslovakia and they then moved to Salzburg and Vienna in Austria, where parts of the family live to this day, but others returned to Bohemia. Valdštejn Castle was the main seat of the family until 1821. In 1582, they purchased the lands of the monastery of Třebíč. Mnichovo Hradiště Castle was acquired by Wallenstein in 1623 and he was buried there and it remained in his family until expropriation in 1945, so did Wallensteins Prague city palace, Wallenstein Palace. In 1622, he had purchased the lordship of Bělá pod Bezdězem. Duchcov Chateau passed into the family by inheritance from the House of Lobkowicz in 1642, together with Horní Litvinov, Dolní Litvinov and Dolní Jiřetín, in 1945, all properties in Czechoslovakia were confiscated. Jan VI of Valdštejn, Bishop of Olomouc 1302–1311 Jan was Supreme Land Judge of Bohemia from 1554 to 1570 and, until 1576 and he was a follower of the utraquist faith. His son, Adam the Younger, was also appointed Supreme Land Judge and he was a faithful Catholic supporter of the Holy Roman Emperor during the anti-Habsburg Bohemian Revolt and for these services he was granted more lands and posts in 1621. In 1627 was appointed Supreme Burgrave of Bohemia and a year later was elevated to the status of Reichsgraf of the Holy Roman Empire. These distinctions were received with mixed feelings – as a Bohemian šlechtic, he still recognized old Bohemian statehood and rules, with the support of other Bohemian noblemen, he brought about the abandonment of the policy of appointing more and more reichsgrafs. He wished to be allowed to die as a Bohemian pán, albrecht von Wallenstein Duke of Friedland, Mecklenburg & Fürst of Sagan, was a famous Imperial general during the Thirty Years War, known for his immense ambitions and tragic end
21.
Duchcov
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Duchcov is a town in the Teplice District in the Ústí nad Labem Region of the Czech Republic. It has a population exceeding 9,000 and is located at the foot of the Ore Mountains and it is also the site of the Castle of Dux. The first documented reference to the town is from 1207, referring to the older name Hrabišín, a brewery was established in 1675. Until 1918, DUX was part of the Austrian monarchy, head of the district with the same name, a post-office was opened in July 1857. In 1938, it was occupied by the Nazi army as one of the municipalities in Sudetenland, the German speaking population was expelled in 1945 and replaced by Czech settlers. The castle was built in the 13th century as a fort, in the 18th century Giacomo Casanova spent his last years in the castle. In the 19th century it was rebuilt in the classicist style, as of 2008, the Castle of Dux is open to visitors. Giacomo Casanova, Italian adventurer, stayed in Dux for 13 years as a librarian and died in the Dux Castle Official website Map of Duchcov Description of the city on Bohemianet
22.
Augustus III of Poland
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The only legitimate son of Augustus II of Poland, he followed his father’s example by joining the Roman Catholic Church in 1712. In 1719 he married Maria Josepha, daughter of the Holy Roman emperor Joseph I, chosen king by a small minority of electors on 5 October 1733, he drove his rival, the former Polish king Stanisław I, into exile. He was crowned in Kraków on 17 January 1734, and was recognised as king in Warsaw in June 1736. Augustus gave Saxon support to Austria against Prussia in the War of the Austrian Succession and his last years were marked by the increasing influence of the Czartoryski and Poniatowski families, and by the intervention of Catherine the Great in Polish affairs. His rule deepened the anarchy in Poland and increased the dependence on its neighbours. The reign of Augustus witnessed one of the greatest periods of disorder in Polish history, Augustus was the only legitimate son of Augustus II the Strong, Prince-Elector of Saxony and king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth who belonged to the Albertine line of the House of Wettin. His mother was Christiane Eberhardine of Brandenburg-Bayreuth, groomed to succeed his father as king of Poland, Augustus converted to Catholicism in 1712, when publicly announced, this caused discontent among the Protestant Saxon aristocracy. Upon the death of Augustus II in 1733, Augustus inherited the Saxon electorate and was elected to the Polish throne, with the support of the Russian Empire and the Holy Roman Empire. He was opposed by the forces of Stanisław I Leszczyński, who had usurped the throne with Swedish support during the Great Northern War, reigning from 1706 until 1709, Stanisław was overthrown after the Swedish defeat at Poltava. As King, Augustus was uninterested in the affairs of his Polish–Lithuanian dominion, focusing instead on hunting, the opera, Augustus delegated most of his powers and responsibilities in the Commonwealth to Heinrich von Brühl, who served in effect as the viceroy of Poland. Augustuss eldest surviving son, Frederick Christian of Saxony, succeeded his father as Elector, a Russian-supported coup détat in Poland, instigated by the Czartoryskis, resulted in the election of Stanisław August Poniatowski as king of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania on 7 September 1764. August was portrayed by Ernst Dernburg in the 1941 film Friedemann Bach, in Dresden on 20 August 1719, Augustus married Archduchess Maria Josepha of Austria, the eldest child of Joseph I, the Holy Roman Emperor. Bachs title of Koeniglicher Pohlnischer Hoff Compositeur is engraved on the page of Bachs famous Goldberg Variations. History of Saxony History of Poland Rulers of Saxony List of Lithuanian rulers Dresden Castle – Residence of Augustus III Bach, Johann Sebastian, Mass in B Minor, Cue points, Oregon Bach festival
23.
Berlin State Museums
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The Berlin State Museums are a group of institutions in Berlin, Germany, comprising seventeen museums in five clusters, several research institutes, libraries, and supporting facilities. They are overseen by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and funded by the German federal government in collaboration with Germanys federal states, the central complex on Museum Island was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in 1999. By 2007 the Berlin State Museums had grown into the largest complex of museums in Europe, director-general of the Berlin State Museums is Michael Eissenhauer. Museum Island Altes Museum, Roman and Greek Classical Antiquities Alte Nationalgalerie, 19th century sculptures and paintings
24.
Ultramarine
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Ultramarine is a deep blue color and a pigment which was originally made by grinding lapis lazuli into a powder. The name comes from the Latin ultramarinus, literally beyond the sea, Ultramarine was the finest and most expensive blue used by Renaissance painters. It was often used for the robes of the Virgin Mary and it remained an extremely expensive pigment until a synthetic ultramarine was invented in 1826. The pigment consists primarily of a mineral containing small amounts of polysulfides. It occurs in nature as a component of lapis lazuli containing a blue cubic mineral called lazurite. The pigment color code is P, the major component of lazurite is a complex sulfur-containing sodium-silicate, which makes ultramarine the most complex of all mineral pigments. Some chloride is present in the crystal lattice as well. The blue color of the pigment is due to the S−3 radical anion, the preparation is typically made in steps. The first part of the takes place at 700 to 750 °C in a closed furnace, so that sulphur, carbon. This yields a yellow-green product sometimes used as a pigment, in the second step air or sulphur dioxide at 350 to 450 °C is used to oxidise sulphide sulphur in the intermediate product to S2 and Sn chromophore molecules, resulting in the blue pigment. The mixture is heated in a kiln, sometimes in brick-sized amounts, the resultant solids are then ground and washed as per any other insoluble pigment manufacturing process. The chemical reaction produces large amounts of sulfur dioxide, meaning that flue-gas desulfurization is an part of its manufacture to comply with pollution regulations. Large chimneys were used to disperse sulfur dioxide produced in the process, resulting in ultramarine tinting the surrounding ground surfaces, Ultramarine poor in silica is obtained by fusing a mixture of soft clay, sodium sulfate, charcoal, sodium carbonate and sulfur. The product is at first white, but soon turns green green ultramarine when it is mixed with sulfur, the sulfur burns, and a fine blue pigment is obtained. Ultramarine rich in silica is obtained by heating a mixture of pure clay, very fine white sand, sulfur. A blue product is obtained at once, but a red tinge often results, the different ultramarines—green, blue, red and violet—are finely ground and washed with water. Its color is unaffected by light nor by contact with oil or lime as used in painting, hydrochloric acid immediately bleaches it with liberation of hydrogen sulfide. Even a small addition of oxide to the reddish varieties especially causes a considerable diminution in the intensity of the color
25.
Cobalt glass
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Cobalt glass—known as smalt when ground as a pigment—is a deep blue colored glass prepared by including a cobalt compound, typically cobalt oxide or cobalt carbonate, in a glass melt. Cobalt is a very intense glass colorant and very little is required to show a noticeable amount of color. Cobalt blue glass is used as an optical filter in flame tests to filter out the yellow flame caused by the contamination of sodium. Cobalt glass such as Bristol blue glass is popular with collectors and it is appreciated for its attractive color. Cobalt aluminate, also known as blue, can be used in a similar way. The earliest known example of cobalt aluminate glass dates to a lump from about 2000BC in ancient Mesopotamia, very possibly intended for use as a pigment, it is then rare until the modern era. About five centuries later cobalt oxide smalt appears as a pigment in Egyptian pottery, and soon after in the Aegean region, in paintings, smalt has a tendency to lose its colour over a long period and is little used today. Chinese porcelain used smalt glazes from the Tang Dynasty onwards, though Chinese cobalt glass is found from the Zhou dynasty, Cobalt was used as a pigment in Central Asia from the 13th century. A fragment of a mud painting in the ancient Tangut city of Khara-Khoto has been found to contain smalt, a large quantity of smalt was purchased for the decoration of the gallery of Francis I of France at Fontainebleau in 1536. Smalt, normally now discoloured, is common in European paintings from the 15th to 17th centuries, for example, it was found in Hans Holbein the Youngers portrait of Sir William Butts, in Michael Pachers painting The Early Fathers Altar, and in the frescos of Domenico Ghirlandaio. The invention of a European smalt process has traditionally been credited to a Bohemian glassmaker named Christoph Schürer, however, its presence in Dieric Bouts The Entombment from circa 1455 proves that it was used at least a century earlier. The result was an intensive blue glass-like substance that was ground and sold to producers of glassware, Cobalt blue Cobalt Smalt, Bruno Mühlethaler and Jean Thissen, Studies in Conservation, Vol.14, No. 2, pp. 47–61, JSTOR Smalt Pigments through the Ages Bromo-Seltzer, Cobalt Blue bottles - Brief Summary M-inside-a-circle, Maryland Glass Corporation, Baltimore
26.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
27.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially the Met, is located in New York City and is the largest art museum in the United States, and is among the most visited art museums in the world. Its permanent collection contains two million works, divided among seventeen curatorial departments. The main building, on the edge of Central Park along Manhattans Museum Mile, is by area one of the worlds largest art galleries. A much smaller second location, The Cloisters at Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan, contains a collection of art, architecture. On March 18,2016, the museum opened the Met Breuer museum at Madison Avenue in the Upper East Side, it extends the museums modern, the Met maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanian, Byzantine, Indian, and Islamic art. The museum is home to collections of musical instruments, costumes and accessories, as well as antique weapons. Several notable interiors, ranging from first-century Rome through modern American design, are installed in its galleries, the Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870. The founders included businessmen and financiers, as well as leading artists and thinkers of the day and it opened on February 20,1872, and was originally located at 681 Fifth Avenue. The Met maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanian, Byzantine, the museum is also home to encyclopedic collections of musical instruments, costumes and accessories, and antique weapons and armor from around the world. A number of interiors, ranging from 1st century Rome through modern American design, are permanently installed in the Mets galleries. In addition to its permanent exhibitions, the Met organizes and hosts traveling shows throughout the year. The director of the museum is Thomas P. Campbell, a long-time curator and it was announced on February 28th,2017 that Campbell will be stepping down as the Mets director and CEO, effective June. On March 1st,2017 the BBC reported that Daniel Weiss shall be the acting CEO until a replacement is found, Beginning in the late 19th century, the Met started to acquire ancient art and artifacts from the Near East. From a few tablets and seals, the Mets collection of Near Eastern art has grown to more than 7,000 pieces. The highlights of the include a set of monumental stone lamassu, or guardian figures. The Mets Department of Arms and Armor is one of the museums most popular collections. Among the collections 14,000 objects are many pieces made for and used by kings and princes, including armor belonging to Henry VIII of England, Henry II of France, Rockefeller donated his more than 3, 000-piece collection to the museum. The Mets Asian department holds a collection of Asian art, of more than 35,000 pieces, the collection dates back almost to the founding of the museum, many of the philanthropists who made the earliest gifts to the museum included Asian art in their collections
28.
The Allegory of Faith
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The Allegory of Faith, also known as Allegory of the Catholic Faith, is a painting created by Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer in about 1670–72. The painting is located at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Both share several features, the perspective is almost the same, the Art of Painting also uses symbolism from Cesare Ripa. Vermeers Love Letter uses the same or a similar gilt panel, the Allegory and The Art of Painting differ markedly in style and purpose from Vermeers other works. The painting depicts a woman in a white and blue satin dress with gold trimmings. Her left arm rests on the edge of a table which holds a chalice, a large book. Behind the crucifix is a gilt-leather panel screen, beneath the book is a long piece of cloth, possibly a priests stole. Resting on top of the book is a crown of thorns, all of these items are on the platform, which is covered by a green and yellow rug, the edge of which is on the floor. At the bottom of the picture, nearer the viewer, is an apple, on the dim, far wall behind the woman, a large painting of Christs crucifixion is hung on the wall behind the woman. To the viewers left is a tapestry, pulled back at the bottom. A chair with a cloth on it is immediately beneath and behind the tapestry and to the left of the snake. Vermeers iconography in the painting is taken from Cesare Ripas Iconologia. The artist used various symbols that Ripa described and illustrated in his book, along with symbols taken from other books, in his book, Ripa states that Faith is the most important of the virtues. One image in the book shows her as a woman, dressed in white, faiths hand on her breast symbolizes that the virtue rests in her heart. Christ is represented in the cornerstone crushing the snake, and the apple represents original sin, which in Christian doctrine required the sacrifice of the Saviour. Ripa describes Faith as having the world under her feet, and Vermeer used the symbol quite literally, by putting the golden chalice against the dark background of the paintings frame and the dark crucifix against the gilt-leather backdrop, the elements are given a greater prominence in the painting. Selena Cant calls the fact that the book, chalice and crucifix together represent the Catholic Mass, the pose of the woman is similar to Ripas image of Theology. The pose was uncommon in Dutch art, but Vermeer was considered an expert in Italian painting, in which the image was often used
29.
Christ in the House of Martha and Mary (Vermeer)
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Christ in the House of Martha and Mary is a painting finished in 1655 by the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. It is housed in the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh and it is the largest painting by Vermeer and one of the very few with an overt religious motive. The story of Christ visiting the household of the two sisters Mary and Martha goes back to the New Testament, the work has also been called Christ in the House of Mary and Martha. The pigment analysis of this painting reveals the use of the pigments of the period such as madder lake, yellow ochre, vermilion. Interestingly enough Vermeer did not paint the robe of Christ with his usual blue pigment of choice ultramarine but with a mixture of smalt, indigo and lead white
30.
The Concert (Vermeer)
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The Concert is a painting by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. The 72. 5-by-64. 7-centimetre picture depicts a man and two women playing music and it belongs to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, but was stolen in 1990 and remains missing. It is thought to be the most valuable unrecovered stolen painting ever, the picture shows three musicians, a young woman sitting at a harpsichord, a man playing a lute, and a woman who is singing. The harpsichords upturned lid is decorated with an Arcadian landscape, its bright colouring stands in contrast to the two paintings hanging on the wall to the right and left, a viola da gamba can be seen lying on the floor. The painting on the left is a pastoral landscape. The musical theme in Dutch painting in Vermeers time often connoted love and seduction, the location of the painting was unknown for a long time. Sold in Amsterdam in 1696, it did not reappear until 1780 and it was acquired by Isabella Stewart Gardner in an 1892 auction in Paris for $5,000 and subsequently displayed in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, beginning in 1903. On the night of March 18,1990, thieves disguised as policemen stole 13 works out of the museum, to this day the painting has not resurfaced. In an episode of The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert claims to be in possession of the work, in a 1964 episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour called Ten Minutes from Now, an art thief is shown stealing this painting from a museum. In the 2003 movie Girl with a Pearl Earring, Vermeer is shown painting The Concert at the time that he is painting Girl with a Pearl Earring. In an episode of the television series Gallery Fake, Duet. In an episode of the television series The Venture Brothers, Victor, the Concert along with The Storm on the Sea of Galilee and several other noted works, are displayed among Phantom Limbs collection of stolen art. Stolen, a film about the theft of The Concert, was produced in 2006 by Persistence of Vision Films. An Object of Beauty, a novel by Steve Martin, includes a plot line involving the theft of The Concert from the Stewart Gardner Museum. In an episode of The Simpsons, American History X-cellent, Mr. Burns is jailed after he is discovered to have The Concert among his collection, in the 2011 novel The 39 Clues, The Medusa Plot the painting is found by Amy and Dan Cahill in Italy. In the NCIS, Los Angeles television series episode Active Measures the character Anatoli Kirkin claims that The Concert has been stolen from him
31.
Diana and Her Companions
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Diana and Her Companions is a painting by Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer completed in the early to mid-1650s, now at the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague. Although the exact year is unknown, the work may be the earliest painting of the artist still extant, with art historians placing it before Christ in the House of Martha and Mary. Rather than directly illustrating one of the moments in well-known episodes from myths about Diana. The theme of a woman in a private, reflective moment would grow stronger in Vermeers paintings as his career progressed, the painting depicts the Greek and Roman goddess Diana with four of her companions. She wears a loose fitting, yellow dress with a sash and, on her head. As she sits on a rock, a nymph washes her left foot, another, behind Diana, sits with her partially bare back to the viewer, a third nymph, sitting at Dianas left, holds her own left foot with her right hand. A fourth stands in the rear, somewhat apart from the rest of the group and facing them and the viewer at an angle, her eyes cast down, her fists in front of her. A dog sits in the lower left-hand corner near Diana, its back to the viewer as it faces the goddess, her attendants and, immediately in front of it, a thistle. Except for the woman whose face is turned away from the viewer, all of the other faces in the painting are to one degree or another in shadow. None of the look at each other, each seemingly absorbed in their own thoughts. In 1999-2000, when the painting underwent restoration work and was cleaned, numerous reproductions up to that time had included the blue sky. Restorers covered over the patch with foliage to approximate the original image, the canvas had also been trimmed, particularly on the right, where about 15 cm was removed. The painting is signed on the left, on the rock between the thistle and the dog. The canvas is a plain weave linen with a count of 14.3 by 10 per square centimeter. Vermeer first outlined the composition with dark brown brushwork (some of which shows through as pentimenti in the skirt of the woman washing Dianas foot, hairs on the dogs ear were scratched in with the handle of the artists brush. Paint has been lost in vertical lines left of the paintings center, according to Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. the painting has no visual precedent. Nor does the artist show Dianas hot temper or her reactions to those episodes. The goddesss ability as a huntress is not signalled by dead game or bows and arrows, even the dog is depicted as a gentle animal, not like the fast hounds normally seen in paintings of Diana
32.
A Girl Asleep
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A Girl Asleep, also known as A Woman Asleep, A Woman Asleep at Table, and A Maid Asleep, is a painting by the Dutch master Johannes Vermeer,1657. It is housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, according to Liedtke, the presence of the dog would have alluded to the sort of impromptu relationships canine suitors strike up on the street. The idea that she was together with someone is reinforced by the wine pitcher, the glass on its side. The painting was among the collection of Vermeer works sold on May 16,1696 from the estate of Jacob Dissius. The works history from that point is unknown until its ownership by John Waterloo Wilson in Paris after 1873. It was sold on March 14,1881 in Paris, when the Sedelmeyer Gallery in Paris bought it and sold it later that year to Rodolphe Kann, Kann owned the work until 1907. It was sold in 1908 through the Duveen Brothers of London to Benjamin Altman, Altman owned the work until 1913, when it passed into the hands of the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a bequest. List of paintings by Johannes Vermeer Dutch Golden Age painting Liedtke, Walter A. Vermeer, Metropolitan Museum of Art webpage on A Girl Asleep. The Milkmaid by Johannes Vermeer, exhibition catalog fully online as PDF from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on A Girl Asleep
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Girl Interrupted at Her Music
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Girl Interrupted at Her Music is a painting by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer. It was painted in the style, probably between the years 1658 and 1659, using oil on canvas. In this painting, Vermeer depicts a woman at her music with an older gentleman. This painting shows the typical courtship during the 17th century in Europe and it also focuses on the importance of music when it comes to love. The room that they are shown in is one of higher class, the painting is very reminiscent of Vermeer’s other works. The wine glass, discreetly shown on the table behind the songbook, is tied with both joyfulness and seduction, in the 17th century it was popular to paint scenes that depicted feasts that included drinking, gaming, and playing music. Later on, these large gatherings became smaller and more exclusive with two or three people shown, drinking wine was also associated with love during this time period. You can see that the glass is full and untouched, which symbolizes the slow moving relationship between the man and the woman, on the left side of the painting is a multi-paned window, from which the light source is provided for the scene. Vermeer used the same design in eight of his other works. Some experts questioned whether this painting was by Vermeer, the precision of the lighting from the window was thought to prove that it was in fact an original Vermeer. The chairs depicted in the painting are thought to have been from Spain and they are some of the few objects in the painting that were not damaged by heavy restoration. You can see the minute details including the lion head carving, the studs. The hazy painting in the background of the scene is of Cupid, the painting within a painting was discovered after its restoration in 1907, it had been covered up by a wall and a hanging violin. The reason for Vermeer including the miniature Cupid painting may never be revealed due to the damaged condition. On the table sits a vase made of porcelain and silver, one of the main centers for porcelain in the Netherlands was and still is Delft, although they had limited success in recreating Chinese porcelain. The man in the painting is likely upper class, due to his fashionable attire, love and music often went hand in hand in the 17th century, especially with the presence of a musical duet between a man and a woman. Playing music with one another was one of the few activities where young people of the opposite sex could socialize. The two in the painting were likely part of the bourgeoisie, which meant that they were worldly and educated when it came to music
34.
Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window
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Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window is an oil painting by Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer. Completed in approximately 1657–59, the painting is on display at the Gemäldegalerie in Dresden. After World War II, the painting was briefly in possession of the Soviet Union, the painting depicts a young Dutch blonde standing at an open window, in profile, reading a letter. A red drapery hangs over the top of the glass, which has opened inward. A tasseled ochre drapery in the left, partially closed. The color of the drape reflects the green of the womans gown, on the table beside the bowl, a peach is cut in half, revealing its pit. He concludes that the letter is a love letter either planning or continuing her illicit relationship and this conclusion, he says, is supported by the fact that x-rays of the canvas have shown that at one point Vermeer had featured a Cupid in the painting. This putto once hung in the right of the piece before, for whatever reason. The draperies themselves, hanging in the foreground, are not an uncommon element for Vermeer. Even more common, the repoussoir appears in 25, with Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window and it was the last painting in which Vermeer featured this device. This painting and Officer and Laughing Girl represent the earliest known examples of the pointillé for which Vermeer became known, Vermeer completed the painting in approximately 1657–59. In 1742, Augustus III of Poland, Elector of Saxony, in 1826, it was mis-attributed again, to Pieter de Hooch. It was so labeled when French art critic Théophile Thoré-Bürger came upon it, recognizing it as one of the works of the Dutch painter. Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window was among the rescued from destruction during the bombing of Dresden in World War II. The painting was stored, with works of art, in a tunnel in Saxony. The Soviets portrayed this as an act of rescue, some others as an act of plunder, the Germans did not take to the idea, and the painting was returned. Well-preserved, it is on display at the Gemäldegalerie in Dresden, the painting was investigated by Hermann Kühn together with several other works of Vermeer in 1968. The pigment analysis has shown that Vermeers choice of painting materials did not reveal any peculiarities as he used the usual pigments of the baroque period
35.
Girl with a Flute
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Girl with a Flute is a small painting attributed to the Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer, executed 1665–1670. The work is in possession of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D. C. just as Woman Holding a Balance, A Lady Writing a Letter and it is contested whether the painting can be attributed to Johannes Vermeer. Possibly another painter finished the painting after a start by Vermeer. The composition is comparable to Girl with a Red Hat, the other work Vermeer painted on panel. Just like Girl with a Red Hat and Girl with a Pearl Earring the model wears a glass, Girl with a Flute is a so-called tronie, a study of a remarkable facial expression or a stock character in costume. This was a genre in Dutch Golden Age painting. Tronies were produced for the market, not for specific patrons. Unlike with portraits the models were always anonymous, Girl with a Flute was in possession of the family of Pieter van Ruijven and was sold at the 1696 Dissius auction in Amsterdam. The work was one of the three tronies with catalogue numbers 38,39 and 40. In the 19th century the painting was owned by the Van Son family in Brabant, in 1923 the American art collector Joseph E. Widener bought the painting. Widener donated his extensive and valuable art collection in 1939 to the National Gallery of Art, een biografie van Johannes Vermeer Amsterdam, Uitgeverij Bert Bakker Wheelock, Arthur K. Vermeer, The Complete Works. New York, Harry N. Abrams National Gallery of Art Essential Vermeer
36.
Girl with a Pearl Earring
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Girl with a Pearl Earring is an oil painting by 17th-century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. It is a tronie of a girl with a headscarf and a pearl earring, the painting has been in the collection of the Mauritshuis in The Hague since 1902. The painting is a tronie, the Dutch 17th-century description of a head that was not meant to be a portrait and it depicts a European girl wearing an exotic dress, an oriental turban, and an improbably large pearl earring. The work is oil on canvas and is 44.5 cm high and 39 cm wide and it is signed IVMeer but not dated. It is estimated to have been painted around 1665, after the most recent restoration of the painting in 1994, the subtle color scheme and the intimacy of the girls gaze toward the viewer have been greatly enhanced. During the restoration, it was discovered that the dark background and this effect was produced by applying a thin transparent layer of paint, called a glaze, over the present-day black background. However, the two organic pigments of the glaze, indigo and weld, have faded. At the time, it was in poor condition, des Tombe had no heirs and donated this and other paintings to the Mauritshuis in 1902. Later in 2014 it was exhibited in Bologna, Italy, in June 2014, it returned to the Mauritshuis museum which stated that the painting will not leave the museum in the future. The painting was investigated by the scientists of the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage and FOM Institute for Atomic, the ground is dense and yellowish in color and is composed of chalk, lead white, ocher and very little black. The dark background of the painting contains bone black, weld, chalk, small amounts of red ochre, the face and draperies were painted mainly using ochres, natural ultramarine, bone black, charcoal black and lead white. Tracy Chevalier wrote a novel, also entitled Girl with a Pearl Earring, fictionalizing the circumstances of the paintings creation. In the novel, Johannes Vermeer becomes close with a servant named Griet. The novel inspired a 2003 film and 2008 play of the same name, the 2003 film stars Scarlett Johansson as Griet, the girl with the pearl earring. Johansson was nominated for awards including a Golden Globe Award. The painting also appears in the 2007 film St Trinians, when a group of unruly schoolgirls steal it to raise funds to save their school. English street artist Banksy has recreated the painting as a mural in Bristol, replacing the pearl earring with an alarm box, liedtke, Walter A. Vermeer and the Delft School. In-depth view of the Girl with a Pearl Earring An investigation into the illumination of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring, ColourLex
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Girl with a Red Hat
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Girl with a Red Hat is a rather small painting, signed by the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. It is seen as one of a number of Vermeers tronies – depictions of models fancifully dressed that were not intended to be portraits of specific, other believe it is a portrait. Whether Vermeer chose family members as models or found elsewhere in Delft is irrelevant to the appreciation of his paintings. Its attribution to Vermeer – as it is on a wood panel and it is thought to have been sold on an auction in Amsterdam on May 16,1696. It was bought at a sale at the Hôtel de Bouillon, after his death it came to his nephew and adopted son, Laurent Atthalin, by inheritance to Baron Gaston Laurent-Atthelin and by inheritance to his wife, Baroness Laurent-Atthelin. The painting was sold by M. Knoedler & Co, new York and London, in November 1925 to Andrew W. Mellon for $290.000, who deeded it on March 30,1932 to The A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust in Pittsburgh, the trust gave it to the NGA in 1937. Liedtke, Walter A. Vermeer and the Delft School, web pages on the painting at National Gallery of Art, Washington Essential Vermeer Girl with the Red Hat
38.
The Guitar Player (Vermeer)
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The Guitar Player is a 1672 painting by Jan Vermeer, on display in Kenwood House, London as part of the Iveagh Bequest. In 2012 Kenwood closed for renovations until autumn 2013, and the painting was on display in the National Gallery for this period and it was returned to Kenwood House in late December. It was recovered by Scotland Yard in the cemetery of St Bartholomew-the-Great, in Londons financial district, although the painting showed signs of dampness, it was otherwise undamaged. Liedtke, Walter A. Vermeer and the Delft School
39.
The Lacemaker (Vermeer)
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The Lacemaker is a painting by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer, completed around 1669–1670 and held in the Louvre, Paris. The work shows a woman dressed in a yellow shawl. At 24.5 cm x 21 cm, the work is the smallest of Vermeers paintings, the canvas used was cut from the same bolt as that used for A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals, and both paintings seem to have had identical dimensions originally. The girl is set against a wall, probably because the artist sought to eliminate any external distractions from the central image. As with his The Astronomer and The Geographer, it is obvious that the artist undertook careful study before he executed the work, the art of lacemaking is portrayed closely and accurately. Vermeer probably used a camera obscura while composing the work, many optical effects typical of photography can be seen, by rendering areas of the canvas as out-of-focus, Vermeer is able to suggest depth of field in a manner unusual of Dutch Baroque painting of the era. In The Lacemaker, the artist presents in a manner the various elements which compose the girls face and body. The girls hands, the curls of her hair and the T-cross which form her eyes, in addition, the red and white of the lace is shown as spilling from the sewing cushion with physical properties suggesting a near liquid form. The blurring of these threads contrasts sharply with the precision of the lace she is working on. Vermeers painting is compared to a 1662 canvas of the same name by the Dutch portrait. However, Vermeers work is different in tone. In the earlier work, both the girls shoes and the mussel shells near her feet have sexual connotations, in addition, the discarded shoes in Netschers painting are unlikely to be the girls own, hinting again at a sexual overtone. According to the art historian Lawrence Gowing, The achievement of Vermeers maturity is complete and it is not open to extension, no universal style is discovered. We have never the sense of abundance that the jewels of his century gives us. There is only one Lacemaker, we cannot imagine another and it is a complete and single definition. New York, Konecky & Konecky,1992, ISBN 0-8387-5538-0 Huerta, Robert D. Vermeer and Plato, Painting the Ideal. ISBN 0-8387-5606-9 Wheelock, Arthur K. Vermeer, The Complete Works, new York, Harry N. Abrams,1997. ISBN 0-8109-2751-9 Liedtke, Walter A. Vermeer and the Delft School
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Lady Seated at a Virginal
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Lady Seated at a Virginal, also known as Young Woman Seated at a Virginal, is a genre painting created by Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer in about 1670–72 and now in the National Gallery, London. Another painting, probably also by Johannes Vermeer known as A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals and this painting and Lady Seated at a Virginal are quite separate works and are each known by alternate names and confusion between those two pieces may exist. The picture shows a woman facing left and playing a virginal, in the left foreground is a viola da gamba holding a bow between its strings. Vermeer had already featured this painting in The Concert, perhaps six years earlier, at the upper left, a tapestry is used to frame the scene, and in the lower right the foot of the back wall is decorated with Delft tiles. Because of its style, the painting has been dated to about 1670 and it has been suggested that it and Lady Standing at a Virginal may have been created as pendants, because their sizes, date and subject matter are all similar. A recent study has shown that the canvas for the two came from the same bolt. In addition, the applied to the canvas appears identical to that used for both the Lady Standing and the New York Young Woman Seated. However their provenances before the 19th century differ, and Vermeer sometimes varied a theme in otherwise unrelated paintings, in the 19th century, both paintings were owned by the art critic Théophile Thoré, whose writings led to a resurgence of interest in Vermeer starting in 1866. The painting entered the National Gallery with the Salting Bequest in 1910, list of paintings by Johannes Vermeer Dutch Golden Age painting Liedtke, Walter A. Vermeer and the Delft School
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Lady Standing at a Virginal
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Lady Standing at a Virginal is a genre painting created by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer in about 1670–1672, now in the National Gallery, London. The identities of the paintings on the wall are not certain, according to the National Gallery, the second painting, showing Cupid holding a card, is attributed to Caesar van Everdingen, Allarts brother. The painting has been dated on stylistic grounds and on the evidence of the costume and this work can be related to another Vermeer in the collection, Lady Seated at a Virginal, on a canvas of almost exactly the same size, with which it may form a pair. A recent study has shown that the canvas for the two came from the same bolt. In addition, the applied to the canvas of each painting appears to be identical. The painting is depicted in David Hockneys 1977 oil painting Looking at Pictures on a Screen, Young Woman Seated at a Virginal List of paintings by Johannes Vermeer Dutch Golden Age painting Gaskell, Ivan. Vermeers Wager, Speculations on Art History, Theory and Art Museums, structured around detailed discussion of Lady Standing at a Virginal Liedtke, Walter A. Vermeer and the Delft School. Essential Vermeer website web page on the painting
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Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid
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Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid is a painting by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer, completed in 1670–1671 and held in the National Gallery of Ireland. The work shows a middle-class woman attended by a housemaid who is acting as messenger and go-between for the lady. The work is seen as a bridge between the quiet restraint and self-containment of Vermeers work of the 1660s and his relatively cooler work of the 1670s and it may have been partly inspired by Ter Borchs painting Woman Sealing a Letter. The paintings canvas was almost certainly cut from the bolt used for Woman with a Lute. Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid is the first of the experiments with centrifugal composition. In addition, it is his work in which the drama. The maid is shown standing in the mid-ground, behind her lady, with her hands crossed, the positions of their bodies indicates that the two women are disconnected. The folded arms of the maid seem outwardly as an attempt to display a sense of self-containment, the maids gaze towards the half-visible window indicates an inner restlessness and boredom, as she waits impatiently for the messenger to carry her ladys letter away. Vermeer had experimented with this painterly device earlier in his career, notably in his View of Delft, The Lacemaker and The Art of Painting. Lady Writing was stolen on 27 April 1974, along with a Goya, led by the British heiress Dr. Rose Dugdale, the thieves used screwdrivers to cut the paintings from their frames. However, the Vermeer and other works were recovered eight days later at a cottage in County Cork, the work was again taken in 1986 by a gang led by the Dublin gangster Martin Cahill. Along with a number of other art-works, Cahill held the painting for a ransom of £20 million, however, the money was not paid, and Cahill lacked contacts or knowledge to otherwise pass it on to international art thieves. The painting was recovered during an August 1993 exchange at Antwerp airport which turned out to be a sting operation organised by the Irish police. It had already been donated in absentia to the National Gallery in Dublin, new York, Konecky & Konecky,1992. Vermeer and Plato, Painting the Ideal, ISBN 0-415-06699-9 Wheelock, Arthur K. Vermeer, The Complete Works. New York, Harry N. Abrams,1997, ISBN 0-8109-2751-9 Liedtke, Walter A. Vermeer and the Delft School
