Letter reader at the open window
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| Letter reader at the open window |
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| Jan Vermeer , 1657/59 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 83 × 64.5 cm |
| Old Masters Picture Gallery |
The letter reader (or letter be read girls) at the open window is 1657-1659 by Jan Vermeer painted oil paintings . It can therefore be assigned to the early phase of Vermeer's artistic work. The picture is 83 centimeters high and 64.5 centimeters wide. It can normally be viewed in the Old Masters Picture Gallery in Dresden , where it has been located since 1742. It has been restored since 2017 and is not open to the public. It should be shown in the reopened Sempergalerie in mid-2020 .
Image description
The room shown is the same as in The Soldier and the Laughing Girl , which was created about a year later. The table and chair are identical. The young woman even wears the same dress as the person depicted in this later painting.
The picture shows a young, festively dressed woman in profile, who is standing in the middle of a room. There is an open window in front of her. The light falls on the woman, the scene is contemplative. In the foreground is a table on which there is an unfolded Turkish rug and a bowl of fruit. Carpets like this one were too valuable to be laid on the floor. The white and blue painting of the porcelain bowl in which the fruit lies can hardly be recognized. Like the carpet, however, it is an indication of the wealth of this household. It was not until the 1650s that such porcelains were imported from China in large numbers, and from this point on they can also be found in Dutch art.
The girl looks down at a letter in her hand so that the viewer can only see her face because of the reflection in the window. Later, as X-rays from 1979 show, the curtain was added to the right edge of the picture in the foreground and a Cupid picture was painted over. Recent research has shown that the Cupid picture comes from Vermeer himself and was only painted over after his death in Paris in the 18th century. For this reason, as part of a comprehensive restoration of the painting that has been carried out by Christoph Schölzel since 2017, the overpainting will also be removed, thus restoring the condition to the time of Vermeer's time. The eros in the picture is a clear indication that the letter the young woman is reading is a love letter. Another picture of Cupid appears in the background in Vermeer's work Standing Virginalspielerin in the National Gallery of London .
symbolism
The image has an erotic component, which also emerges from the details next to the clear Cupid image in the background. The apples and peaches in the fruit bowl are an allusion to the fall of Adam and Eve . The open window suggests the desire to break out of the confines of the house.
literature
- Timothy Brook: Vermeer's Hat - The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World. Profile Books, London 2009, ISBN 978-1-84668-120-2
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ SKD: Restoration of Johannes Vermeer's painting “Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window”. Retrieved February 12, 2019 .
- ↑ Brook, p. 55
- ↑ mdr.de: Discovered during restoration: Vermeer did not paint over "Letter Reader" himself | MDR.DE. Retrieved May 7, 2019 .
- ^ Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden: A "new" Vermeer: Johannes Vermeer's "Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window" is being restored. May 7, 2019, accessed May 7, 2019 .
- ↑ Brook, p. 55