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National Gallery of Art - THE COLLECTION
image of Woman Holding a Balance
Johannes Vermeer (artist)
Dutch, 1632 - 1675
Woman Holding a Balance, c. 1664
oil on canvas
stretcher size: 42.5 x 38 cm (16 3/4 x 14 15/16 in.) painted surface: 39.7 x 35.5 cm (15 5/8 x 14 in.) framed: 62.9 x 58.4 x 7.6 cm (24 3/4 x 23 x 3 in.)
Widener Collection
1942.9.97
From the Tour: Johannes Vermeer and Dutch Scenes of Daily Life in the 1600s
Object 7 of 8

Provenance

Possibly Pieter Claesz van Ruijven [1624-1674], Delft; possibly by inheritance to his wife, Maria de Knuijt [d. 1681], Delft; possibly by inheritance to her daughter, Magdalena van Ruijven [1655-1682], Delft; possibly by inheritance to her husband, Jacobus Abrahamsz. Dissius [1653-1695], Delft;[1] (sale, Amsterdam, 16 May 1696, no. 1);[2] Isaac Rooleeuw, Amsterdam; (sale, Amsterdam, 20 April 1701, no. 6); Paolo van Uchelen [d. 1703], Amsterdam. (sale, B. Tideman, Amsterdam, 18 March 1767, no. 6); Kok. Nicolaas Nieuhoff, Amsterdam; (sale, Ph. van der Schley, Amsterdam, 14 April 1777, no. 116); Van den Bogaard.[3] (sale, Maximilian I Joseph (1756-1825), Munich, 5 December 1826, no. 101, as by Gabriel Metsu). Louis CharlesVictor de Riquet de Caraman [1762-1839], Paris; (sale, Lacoste, Paris, 10 May 1830, no. 68). Casimir Péreir; (sale, Christie & Manson, London, 5 May 1848, no. 7); Péreir's son; by inheritance to Comtesse de Ségur-Péreir; (P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., London, and M. Knoedler & Co., New York);[4] sold 11 January 1911 to Peter A. B. Widener, Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; inheritance from Estate of Peter A. B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; gift 1942 to NGA.

[1] The inventory of Magdalena's collection lists twenty paintings by Vermeer. For the complete transactions between her husband Jacob Dissius and his father Abraham Dissius following her death, see John Michael Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu: A Web of Social History, Princeton, 1989, 246-257, 359-360, docs. 417, 420.

[2] For this sale see Montias 1989, 363-364, doc. 439.

[3] The systematic catalogue for the NGA Dutch paintings published the following information at this point in the provenance: "PP. [initials of consignor]; (sale, Ph. van der Schley, Amsterdam, 11 May 1801, no. 48); bought for Ph. van der Schley by M[errem]." This had been provided by The Getty Provenance Index, but was in error. The painting in the 1801 sale was one of the same subject by Pieter de Hooch, now in Berlin, per 27 October 1997 letter from Burton Frederickson, Director of the Provenance Index, in NGA curatorial files.

[4] M. Knoedler & Co. purchased one-quarter share in the painting from Colnaghi in October 1910, per 18 May 1995 letter from Melissa De Medeiros, Knoedler Librarian, in NGA curatorial file.

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