The Music Lesson (Vermeer)

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The Music Lesson (Jan Vermeer)
The music lesson
Jan Vermeer , 1662-1665
Oil on canvas
74.6 x 64.1 cm
Royal Collection (London)

The music lesson (also gentleman and lady at the virginal ) is a painting by Jan Vermeer . It shows a young woman during a music lesson.

Image description

The lady standing at the virginal turns her back on the viewer. Her face is depicted in a mirror . A music teacher is standing next to her. The painting is dominated by dark parts such as the bluish-black floor. The floor was painted with black animal charcoal and ultramarine .

The trimmed picture on the wall shows Simon and Pero , the virginal comes from the Ruckers workshop . In the mirror you can see part of an easel as an indication that a third person, the painter, is in the room. The glasses for the wine jug are missing.

The partially covered inscription on the inside of the lid of the virgin reads:

MUSICA LETITIAE CO [ME] S MEDICINA DOLOR [IS] or MUSICA LETITIAE CO [NSOR] S MEDICINA DOLOR [UM]
Music is the companion of joy and medicine for pain .

Provenance

In May 1696 the painting was sold in Delft . It was previously part of the Jacob Dissous collection , which included several Vermeers. In 1718 it was bought by the Venetian artist Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini while working in the Netherlands. After his death, the British consul in Venice Joseph Smith acquired his collection, which also included works by Peter Paul Rubens , Pieter Neefs and Frans Post , from the widow, a sister of the Venetian painter Rosalba Carriera . Smith interpreted the monogram IVMeer in the picture as the famous and expensive Frans van Mieris at the time and had a copy made.

The music lesson has been in the Royal Collection London since 1762 when King George III. Smith's painting collection bought. In 1866 the painting was correctly assigned to Vermeer by Théophile Thoré .

Charles Wild: Windsor Castle, King's Closet (1816). The music lesson hangs over the fireplace on the left

The image was kept at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle at different times . It is depicted in the watercolor Windsor Castle: the King's Closet (1816) by Charles Wild .

literature

  • Arthur K. Wheelock: The Music Lesson (A Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman). In: Arthur K. Wheelock: Jan Vermeer. Abrams, New York 1981, ISBN 0-8109-1730-0 , pp. 100-103.
  • Christopher White: The Pictures in the Collection of her Majesty the Queen: the Dutch Pictures. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982, ISBN 0-521-24283-5 .
  • Gilles Aillaud ; Albert Blankert; John Michael Montias : Vermeer. Weber, Geneva 1987, ISBN 3-295-00339-4 , pp. 184f.
  • Daniel Arasse : Vermeer's ambition . Translation from French (1993) Hella Faust. Dresden: Verlag der Kunst, 1996 ISBN 3-364-00327-0 , pp. 74–86
  • Arthur K. Wheelock, Ben Broos: A Lady at the Virginal with a Gentleman (The Music Lesson). In: Arthur K. Wheelock (Ed.): Johannes Vermeer. Exhibition catalog. Waanders, Zwolle 1995, ISBN 90-400-9802-6 , pp. 128-133.
  • Walter A. Liedtke: Vermeer and the Delft School. Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York 2001, ISBN 978-0-87099973-4 .
  • Karin Leonhard : The painted room. About Jan Vermeer's interior painting. Fink, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-7705-3876-5 , pp. 154-158.
  • Wayne E. Franits : Living in the Lap of Luxury: Vermeer, his Admirers and his Patrons. In: Marjorie E. Wieseman (Ed.): Vermeer's women: secrets and silence. Exhibition catalog. Yale University Press, New Haven 2011, ISBN 978-0-300-17899-9 , pp. 124-151. Image interpretation p. 204.
  • Marjorie E. Wieseman: Vermeer and Music: The Art of Love and Leisure. Exhibition catalog, National Gallery Company, London 2013.

Web links

Commons : The Music Lesson (Vermeer)  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The mirror in the picture - the picture in the mirror: Jan (Johann) Vermeer: ​​“The Music Lesson”. thomasgransow.de, accessed on March 24, 2017.
  2. ^ Edward A. Snow: A study of Vermeer . Berkeley: Univ. of Calif. Press, 1979, ISBN 0-520-03147-4 , pp. 86-96.
  3. ↑ a b Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman , at Royal Collection
  4. ↑ Frances Vivian: The Consul Smith Collection: Masterpieces of Italian Drawing from the Royal Library, Windsor Castle. From Raffael to Canaletto. Hirmer, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7774-5120-7 , p. 26ff.
  5. ↑ Windsor Castle: The King's Closet, 1816. The Royal Collection, accessed March 24, 2017.