The holy praxedis

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Saint Praxedis (Jan Vermeer)
The holy praxedis
Jan Vermeer , 1655
Oil on canvas
101.6 x 82.6 cm
Private collection
(permanent loan to the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo )

Saint Praxedis is an oil painting attributed to Jan Vermeer . The 101.6 centimeters high and 82.6 centimeters wide work depicts Saint Praxedis , a Christian martyr from the first or second century. The picture is in a private collection.

Image description

The painting Saint Praxedis is a copy of Felice Ficherelli 's picture of the same name. It shows Praxedis in large format and full screen. She wears a red robe and holds a crucifix in her hands. At the same time she squeezes a blood-soaked sponge over a vessel. According to legend, she used a sponge to collect the blood of Christian martyrs at the place of execution during the persecution of Christians . In the background of the picture lies a corpse, which underlines this connection. The saint's head stands out clearly against the deep blue sky. The picture is signed on the left with Meer 1655 , on the right with Meer N R..oo .

Attribution

Sacred Praxedis was first introduced in 1969 by art historian Michael Kitson in Burlington Magazine as a result of an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as the work of Jan Vermeer. In the following years, other art historians followed this opinion. The attribution by Arthur K. Wheelock , who reads the right signature as [Ver] Meer N [aar] R [ip] o [s] o ( Vermeer after Riposo ), is particularly important . Since Riposo was Ficherelli's stage name, Wheelock sees it as the specification of the original by Vermeer. He also conducted laboratory studies of the color and stylistic similarities of the sky and face of Praxedis with other early works by Vermeer. Especially after the big Vermeer exhibition in The Hague and Washington, DC , criticism of this argument was loud. For example, Jørgen Wadum , chief curator of the Mauritshuis , strictly rejected the assumption about the meaning of the second signature.

Provenance

When Die Heilige Praxedis was first ascribed to Vermeer, the picture was in the Erna and Jacob Reder collection in New York , which it had moved to in 1943. The New York art dealer Spencer Samuels & Co acquired the painting from this collection in 1969 and sold it on to the art collector Barbara Piasecka Johnson in 1987 . Since the late 1990s, Die Heilige Praxedis has been exhibited together with other religious paintings from the Piasecka Johnson collection in the Musée de la Chapelle de la Visitation in Monaco . Fritz Duparc and Arthur Wheelock included the picture in the Vermeer exhibition in the Mauritshuis in The Hague in 1996 in order to be able to discuss the qualitative differences to the verified works of Vermeer's . On 8 July 2014, the picture at an auction in joining Christie's for 6,242,000 pounds sterling the owner. The painting has been on permanent loan to the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo since 2015 .

literature

  • Ben Broos, Arthur K. Wheelock (Eds.): Vermeer. The complete work . Belser, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-7630-2322-4 .
  • Arthur K. Wheelock: Vermeer . DuMont Literature and Art Publishing, Cologne 2003. ISBN 3-8321-7339-0 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Kitson: Florentine Baroque Art in New York . Exhibition Review in Burlington Magazine 1969, p. 410.
  2. ↑ Ben Broos, Arthur K. Wheelock: Vermeer. The Complete Works , page 86.
  3. ↑ http://www.artibusethistoriae.org/?menu=art&gdzie=artibusChapter&id=123
  4. ↑ Jørgen Wadum (1998) Contours of Vermeer, pp. 214-219; In: Vermeer Studies, edited by Ivan Gaskell and Michiel Jonker. National Gallery of Art.
  5. ↑ Kia Vahland : A good girl lowers her eyelids , Süddeutsche Zeitung , July 5, 2014, p. 19
  6. ↑ "Heilige Praxedis" in London succeeds 6.242 million pounds , at: wn.com
  7. ^ "Attributed to Johannes Vermeer, Saint Praxedis, 1655, Oil on canvas, 101.6 x 82.6 cm, On deposit, DEP. 2014-0001. ” , Information about the painting on the website of the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo.

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