Reconsidering Vermeer’s Perfectionism
What can we learn by examining Vermeer's paintings?
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.
Johannes Vermeer
West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 50-A
Above all, Johannes Vermeer was a painter of light. In this exquisite painting, diffused light softly illuminates the tabletop, the woman’s face, and her rich lemon-yellow morning jacket. Accents on the pearls decorating her jewelry box, her earrings, and her satin hair ribbons further enliven the image. The woman’s open gaze engages the viewer, which suggests that the painting may be a portrait instead of a generalized portrayal of a young woman at her writing table.
Johannes Vermeer became a master in the Saint Luke’s Guild of Delft on December 29, 1653. At that time he specialized in history painting, and his first works were large-scale mythological and religious paintings. Shortly thereafter he began to paint the genre scenes, landscapes, and allegories for which he has become so renowned. Even though Vermeer's subject matter changed in the mid-1650s, he continued to imbue his later works with the quiet, intimate moods he had preferred in his early history paintings. His oeuvre is small: only 35 paintings are currently attributed to the master.
Copy-and-paste citation text:
Alexandra Libby, Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Johannes Vermeer/A Lady Writing/c. 1665,” Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century, NGA Online Editions, https://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/46437 (accessed April 05, 2025).
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oil on canvas
overall: 45 x 39.9 cm (17 11/16 x 15 11/16 in.)
framed: 68.3 x 62.2 x 7 cm (26 7/8 x 24 1/2 x 2 3/4 in.)
1962.10.1
Johannes Vermeer (artist) Dutch, 1632 - 1675
This image is in the public domain.
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Vermeer, to a greater extent than any other Dutch artist, was able to capture the delicate equilibrium between the physical stillness of a setting and a transient moment of an individual arrested within it. As in
A Lady Writing is signed with a monogram on the lower frame of the picture on the back wall, but like most Vermeer paintings, it is not dated. The painting style and technique, as well as the woman’s costume and hairdo, however, relate to other works that appear to belong to the artist’s mature phase, in the mid-to-late 1660s. The woman’s elegant yellow jacket is almost certainly the one mentioned in the inventory of household effects made after Vermeer’s death.
John Michael Montias, Recent Archival Research on Vermeer, Studies in the History of Art (Washington, DC, 1998), 339, doc. 364: “a yellow satin mantle with white fur trimming.”
See inventory no. 912B from the Staatliche Museen, Berlin; inventory no. 25.110.24 from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and inventory no. 19.1.126 from the Frick Collection, New York. For the dating of the Frick painting, see The Frick Collection: An Illustrated Catalogue: Paintings, American, British, Dutch, Flemish and German (New York, 1968), 296–297.
This information was kindly supplied by A. M. Louise E. Mulder-Erkelens, keeper of textiles, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (see her letter of May 7, 1974, to A. B. de Vries, copy in NGA curatorial files).
Conceptually, this painting relates to
Vermeer has here significantly reduced the number of compositional elements and focused intently on the woman’s figure and a few objects in her environment. Not only is she proportionally larger and fuller than the woman holding the balance, she and the table on which she writes are quite close to the picture plane, a proximity emphasized by the directness of her gaze. Although in both paintings light enters from the left, no light source is shown in A Lady Writing. The light illuminating the tabletop, the woman’s face, and her rich lemon-yellow morning jacket is softer and more diffused than that of Woman Holding a Balance.
Vermeer limited his composition here to a few select elements that reinforce the central motif of a woman writing. He has clustered all the small objects in the painting on the table. This concentration of small shapes contrasts with the broad forms of the rest of the composition, which create a geometric framework for the figure. The picture on the back wall, for example, covers two-thirds of the width of the composition. The width of the wall to the right of the picture is equal to the height of the table, or one-half the distance from the bottom of the picture to the bottom edge of the painting itself. The width of the table, moreover, is approximately one-half the width of the painting. Such proportional relationships help balance and harmonize the essentially asymmetrical composition.
In much the same manner that Vermeer has refined his composition by eliminating extraneous elements, so has he eliminated anecdotal elements that give clues to the meaning of the painting. While he has depicted a woman, pen in hand, looking directly at the viewer, he has not indicated whether she is contemplating her message or directing her attention outward. Unlike other of Vermeer’s depictions of letter writers such as the Mistress and Maid (Frick Collection, New York), no maid delivers a letter or awaits a reply. One possible indication of the general theme of the painting may be given by the picture hanging on the back wall. This dark and barely distinguishable image appears to be a still life with musical instruments.
Keil Boström, “Jan Vermeer van Delft en Cornelis van der Meulen,” Oud-Holland 66 (1951): 117–122, suggests that the painting depicted may be one by
This thematic association was first suggested by Albert P. de Mirimonde, “Les Sujets musicaux chez Vermeer de Delft,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 57 (January 1961): 40. For emblematic literature relating musical instruments to love see Eddy de Jongh, Zinne- en Minnebeelden in de schilderkunst van de zeventiende eeuw (Amsterdam, 1967), 50–51.
See Gabriel Metsu, A Young Woman Composing Music, c. 1662–1663 (Mauritshuis, inventory no. 94). Franklin W. Robinson, Gabriel Metsu (1629–1667): A Study of His Place in Dutch Genre Painting of the Golden Age (New York, 1974), 64–65, dates this painting to around 1667.
Eddy de Jongh, Zinne- en Minnebeelden in de schilderkunst van de zeventiende eeuw (Amsterdam, 1967), 50–51.
Vermeer must have known Ter Borch’s Letter Writer (c. 1655, Mauritshuis, The Hague), the first Dutch depiction of this subject, as well as Metsu’s slightly later adaptation, Elegant Lady Writing at Her Desk (c. 1662–1664, Leiden Collection).
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Pen to Paper,” in Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting (Dublin, 2017), 122–127.
On Ter Borch’s approach to temporality see Alexandra Libby, Time and Temporality in 17th-Century Dutch Genre Painting, National Gallery of Art, Washington, https://www.nga.gov/research/in-depth/themes-ideas-dutch-genre-painting/time-temporality-17-century-dutch-genre-painting.html (accessed Mar. 22, 2019).
E. Melanie Gifford, public lecture at symposium for the exhibition Johannes Vermeer, January 20, 1996.
One possible explanation for the woman’s striking pose is that A Lady Writing is a portrait. The letter-writing theme would have allowed Vermeer to achieve a convincing sense of naturalism that formal portraits often lack. Although no documentary evidence confirms that Vermeer painted portraits, certain compositional characteristics in this work seem to reinforce this hypothesis. He has posed the woman in the foreground of the painting, thereby enhancing her physical and psychological presence. Her distinctive features—a large forehead and a long, narrow nose—are portraitlike characteristics that resemble those of Study of a Young Woman (c. 1666–1667, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), and are not as idealized as those of women in his other genre scenes of the same period. Finally, her form is modeled with delicate brushstrokes and subtle nuances of color that articulate her features with unusual clarity.
The identity of the sitter has not been established. One possibility is that she is Vermeer’s wife, Catharina Bolnes. Born in 1631, she would have been in her early-to-mid thirties when Vermeer painted this work. Although it is difficult to judge the age of models in paintings, such an age does seem appropriate for this figure, and she does wear Catharina’s yellow jacket.
John Michael Montias, Recent Archival Research on Vermeer, Studies in the History of Art (Washington, DC, 1998), 339, doc. 364: “a yellow satin mantle with white fur trimming.”
See Ernst Gunther Grimme, Jan Vermeer van Delft (Cologne, 1974), 54. For my identification of the model in Woman Holding a Balance as Catharina Bolnes, Vermeer’s wife and the mother of his fifteen children, see Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675): Sainte Praxède–Saint Praxedis (Monaco, 1998), 28.
Original entry by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., April 24, 2014.
Revised by Alexandra Libby to incorporate information from a technical examination.
December 9, 2019
center left on frame of picture on back wall: IVMEER (IVM in ligature)
Possibly Pieter Claesz van Ruijven [1624-1674], Delft; possibly by inheritance to his wife, Maria de Knuijt [d. 1681]; 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] (his sale, Amsterdam, 16 May 1696, no. 35).[2] J. van Buren, The Hague; (his sale, Bernardus Scheurleer, The Hague, 7-12 November 1808, 6th day [12 Nov.], no. 22 of the paintings). Dr. Cornelis Jan Luchtmans [1777-1860], Rotterdam; (his sale, by Mierop, Muys van Leen, and Lamme, Rotterdam, 20 and 22 April 1816, 1st day, no. 90); J. Kamermans, Rotterdam; (his sale, by A. Lamme, Rotterdam, 3 October 1825, no. 70); Lelie.[3] Hendrik Reydon; (his sale, by J. de Vries, A. Brondgeest, E.M. Engelberts, and C.F. Roos, Amsterdam, 5-6 April 1827, no. 26). François-Xavier, comte de Robiano [1778-1836], Brussels; (his estate sale, Hotel du Défunt, Brussels, 1 May 1837 and days following, no. 436); purchased by Héris for François-Xavier's son. Ludovic, comte de Robiano [1807-1887], Brussels; by inheritance to Ludovic's heirs, possibly his daughter and only child, Jeanne [1835-1900] and her husband, Gustave, baron de Senzeilles de Soumagne [1824-1906], until 1906;[4] (J. & A. LeRoy, Brussels); purchased 1907 by J. Pierpont Morgan [1837-1913], New York; by inheritance to his son, J. P. Morgan, Jr. [1867-1943], New York; consigned 1935-1939 to, and purchased 1940 by (M. Knoedler & Co., New York); sold 1940 to Sir Harry Oakes [1874-1943], Nassau, Bahamas; by gift or inheritance to his wife, Lady Eunice Myrtle McIntyre Oakes [c. 1894-1981], Nassau, Bahamas; consigned 1946 to (M. Knoedler & Co., New York);[5] sold 1946 to Horace Havemeyer [1886-1956], New York; by inheritance to his sons, Harry Waldron Havemeyer [b. 1929], New York, and Horace Havemeyer, Jr. [1914-1990], New York;[6] gift 1962 to NGA.
[1] The 1683 inventory of goods accruing to Jacob Dissius after the death of his wife Magdalena van Ruyven 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, 359-361, docs. 417, 420.
[2] For this sale see Michael Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu: A Web of Social History, Princeton, 1989: 363-364, doc. 439.
[3] This name is recorded in an annotated copy of the sale catalogue in the NGA Library.
[4] This is suggested by the Getty Provenance Index© Databases, Public Collections, record 17464.
[5] The Knoedler’s consignment numbers were CA 1503 (from Morgan) and CA 2758 (from Lady Oakes), per the Getty Provenance Index© Databases, Public Collections, record 17464.
[6] Harry W. Havemeyer (correspondence 12 August 2010) indicated that Vermeer’s painting hung over the fireplace in the library of their residence at 720 Park Avenue, but emphasized that the fireplace, therefore, was never used. He wrote that his father probably had first admired the painting at the Hudson-Fulton exhibition in 1909, and was pleased to be able to acquire it from Knoedler’s when it was offered to him in 1946. Harry and Horace Havemeyer decided to donate the painting to the National Gallery of Art because of their father’s admiration for the Gallery and its director John Walker.
The fabric support has a moderately fine weave.
Earlier technical summaries of this work were prepared by Melissa Katz and Catherine Metzger.
Average densities of 14.5 threads/cm horizontally and 12.1 threads/cm vertically were measured by the Thread Count Automation Project of Cornell University and Rice University (see report dated May 2010 in NGA conservation department files).
Robert L. Feller, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, has identified chalk, lead white, black, and red and yellow iron oxide pigments in the gray ground (see report dated June 26, 1974, in NGA conservation department files).
Vermeer worked with a colored underpaint characterized by stronger contrasts of light and dark than the final paint and a rougher texture. The contrast of smoothly blended final paint over the vigorous underpaint creates a variety of textural and light effects. In the yellow jacket, for example, vigorous folds described in the underpaint were smoothed by fluid strokes, followed by rounded highlights touched into wet paint to form specular reflections on the fabric. Contours are softened by blending adjacent paint areas wet-into-wet, or by leaving a small area of ground or underpaint exposed along the edges of the forms.
Melanie Gifford, "Painting Light: Recent Observations on Vermeer's Technique," in Vermeer Studies, ed. Ivan Gaskell and Michiel Jonker (Washington, DC, 1998), 185–199.
Infrared reflectography was carried out using a Santa Barbara Focalplane InSb camera filtered to 1.5–1.8 microns (H filter). X-radiography was carried out with a Comet Technologies XRP-75MXR-75HP tube, and the images were digitally captured using a Carestream Industrex Blue Digital Imaging Plate 5537 (14 × 17 in.). The parameters were 43 kV, 8 mA, 30 seconds, and 98.5 in. distance (from source to plate). The resulting digital images were composited and processed using Adobe Photoshop CS5.
A few flake losses exist, mostly on the edges. Small, regularly spaced holes along the left and right edges penetrate the paint and ground layer but do not align with the cusping pattern or appear to be tack holes from a dimensional change. There is some abrasion in the still life hanging on the wall, but overall the painting is in excellent condition. It was treated in 1935 by Louis de Wild.
See memo dated February 2, 1968, in NGA conservation department files.
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., Joanna Dunn, and Dina Anchin, based on conservation reports by David Bull, Melanie Gifford, Melissa Katz, and Kay Silberfeld
December 9, 2019