The Smiling Girl

c. 1925

Shown from the chest up, a young, pale-skinned woman looks over her shoulder and grins widely at us so her bottom teeth show in this vertical painting. The girl’s shoulders face our left in profile, and she turns her head to look out from the corners of her large, dark eyes. She has a round face with faint brows, a slightly turned up nose, and full pink lips. A teardrop-shaped pearl hangs from the ear we see. Her dark hair is brushed back and covered by a charcoal gray cloth, which drapes to her upper back. A wide white collar lies across an ochre-yellow garment, and the background is dark brown. The whole painting has a yellow cast.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Andrew W. Mellon Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 41 x 31.8 cm (16 1/8 x 12 1/2 in.)
    framed: 68.9 x 59.1 x 12.1 cm (27 1/8 x 23 1/4 x 4 3/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1937.1.55

More About this Artwork

Shown from about the knees up, a pale, smooth-skinned woman in a fur-lined yellow jacket looks out at us as she sits writing at a table in this vertical painting. The woman’s body faces the table to our left. She turns her head to gaze at us from the corners of her dark gray eyes under faint brows. She has a wide nose, and her pale lips are closed. Her light brown hair is pulled back and held in place with white bows, and gleaming teardrop-shaped pearl earrings dangle from her ears. Her lemon-yellow jacket is trimmed with ermine fur, which is white with black speckles, at the cuffs and down the front opening. A full, elephant-gray skirt falls to the floor beneath the jacket. Both hands rest on the table, and she holds a quill in her right hand, farther from us, on a piece of paper. She leans forward in her wooden chair. The back panel of the chair is covered in black fabric and lined with brass studs. Two gilded finials, carved into lions’ heads, face the woman’s back with mouths open. The table is covered with a celestial-blue cloth crumpled near the left edge of the canvas. On the table are a strand of pearls, a pale yellow ribbon, and a black box with three brown panels studded with pearls around silver keyholes. Two pewter gray vessels are visible just beyond it, in front of a second chair, which faces us. On the putty-gray wall behind the woman, a framed painting hangs in the upper left quadrant of the composition. The painting-within-the painting is done in muted tones of brown and shows a cello and other unidentifiable objects.

Interactive Article:  Reconsidering Vermeer’s Perfectionism

What can we learn about 17th-century Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer by examining the pigments in his paintings?

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Private collection, Lower Rhine, in 1926; sold 1926 to Walter Kurt Rohde, Berlin; sold May 1926 to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris);[1] sold December 1926 to Andrew W. Mellon [1835-1937], Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.; deeded 30 March 1932 to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1937 to NGA.
[1] Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Getty Research Institute, Research Library, Los Angeles: reel 154, box 299, folder 14; copies in NGA curatorial files. See also Jonathan Lopez' book (The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren, New York, 2008: 54, 58-61, 64-69, 86, 94-96, 103, 112-115), and article (“The Early Vermeers of Han van Meegeren,” Apollo [July-August 2008]: 22-29).

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1929

  • Exhibition of Dutch Art 1450-1900, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1929, no. 317, as Head of a Young Girl by Johannes Vermeer.

2015

  • The Art of Sleuthing, Bob Jones University Museum & Gallery, Greenville, South Carolina, 2015-2017, no catalogue.

Bibliography

1926

  • Bode, Wilhelm von. "Vermeer." In Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 47 (1926): 251, repro.

  • "A Portrait by Vermeer." Apollo (December 1926): 231, color repro.

  • Dayot, Armand. "Un Portrait Inconnu par Vermeer de Delft." L'Art et les Artistes (October 1926): 33, repro.

1928

  • "America Lends Dutch Paintings to London Show." Art News (29 December 1928): 1, repro. 14.

  • Valentiner, Wilhelm R. "A Newly Discovered Vermeer." Art in America (April 1928): 101-107, repro.

1929

  • International Studio (January 1929): 65.

  • Gibson, William. "The Dutch Exhibition at Burlington House." Apollo 9 (January 1929): 81, color repro. 116.

  • Hofstede de Groot, C. Jan Vermeer of Delft. Amsterdam, 1929: 5, no. 50, repro.

1932

  • Bredius, Abraham. "An Unpublished Vermeer." The Burlington Magazine 61 (October 1932): 145.

1935

  • Tietze, Hans. Meisterwerke europäischer Malerei in Amerika. Vienna, 1935: 190, repro. (English ed., Masterpieces of European Painting in America. New York, 1939: 190, repro.).

1937

  • "The Mellon Collection. A National Art Gallery for America." The Connoisseur (March 1937): 140-141, repro.

  • Hale, Philip Leslie. Vermeer. Edited by Frederick W. Coburn and Ralph T. Hale. Boston, 1937: 134-135, repro.

1940

  • Goldscheider, Ludwig. The Paintings of Jan Vermeer. New York, 1940: 5.

1941

  • Duveen Brothers. Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America. New York, 1941: no. 216, repro., as by Jan Vermeer.

  • Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 209, no. 55, as by Jan Vermeer.

1942

  • Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 240, repro. 34, as by Jan Vermeer.

1943

  • Apollo 38 (July 1943): cover repro.

1945

  • Vries, Ary Bob de. Jan Vermeer van Delft. Basel, 1945: 113, no. 19.

1948

  • Vries, Ary Bob de. Jan Vermeer van Delft. Translated by Robert Allen. Revised ed. London and New York, 1948: 97, pl. 35.

  • Kurz, Otto. Fakes: A Handbook for Collectors and Students. London, 1948: 58.

1949

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949 (reprinted 1953 and 1958): 34, repro., as by Jan Vermeer.

1950

  • Swillens, P. T. A. Johannes Vermeer: Painter of Delft, 1632–1675. Translated by C.M. Breuning-Williamson. Utrecht, 1950: 65-66, no. I.

1958

  • Goldscheider, Ludwig. Jan Vermeer: The Paintings. London, 1958: 144, no. 8.

1965

  • National Gallery of Art. Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. Washington, 1965: 135, as by Vermeer.

1968

  • Bianconi, Piero. Tout l'oeuvre peint de Vermeer. Paris, 1968: no. 16.

  • European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1968: 122, repro., as by Vermeer.

1970

  • Richard, Paul. "The Mystery of the Two Vermeers." The Washington Post (12 February 1970): B1, B12.

1973

  • Fahy, Everett, and Francis John Bagott Watson. The Wrightsman Collection. Vol. 5: Paintings, drawings, sculpture. New York, 1973: 319.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 364, repro., as Follower of Vermeer.

1995

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. "The Story of Two Vermeer Forgeries." In Shop Talk: Studies in Honor of Seymour Slive, Presented on His Seventy-fifth Birthday. Cambridge, Mass., 1995: 271-275, 426 fig. 2, as by Imitator of Johannes Vermeer (probably Theodorus van Wijngaarden).

2001

  • Franits, Wayne E., ed. The Cambridge companion to Vermeer. Cambridge, England, and New York, 2001: 173-176, fig. 62, as by Theodorus van Wijngaarden.

2008

  • Fenton, Roger. "Victims of Vermeermania." The New York Review of Books 55, no. 17 (November 6, 2008): 58.

  • Lopez, Jonathan. The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren. New York, 2008: 54, 59, 61, 64-71, 86, 94-96, 103, 112-113, 115, 228-240, repro., as by Han van Meegeren.

  • Dolnick, Edward. The Forger’s Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century. New York, 2008: 107, 108, 109-111, 118, 119, 140n, 306n, color plate, as by Theo van Wijngaarden.

  • Lopez, Jonathan. "Van Meegeren's Early Vermeers." Apollo (July-August 2008): 22-29, fig. 9, as by Han van Meegeren.

2013

  • Harris, Neil. Capital Culture: J. Carter Brown, the National Gallery of Art, and the Reinvention of the Museum Experience. Chicago and London, 2013: 221.

2018

  • Meersschaert, Erik. Adrian Brouwer--zo zijn leven, zo zijn werk. Oudenaarde, 2018: 288, 290 color repro.

2022

  • Gifford, E. Melanie, Kathryn A. Dooley, and John K. Delaney. "Methodology & Resources: New Findings from the National Gallery of Art." Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art. 14, no. 2 (Summer 2022): fig. 24.

Wikidata ID

Q20192588

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