The painting ‘Girl with the Flute’, a work in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington that was attributed to the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, turns out not to be by the seventeenth century master. Research has shown that, the museum stated on Friday.
Experts had doubted for years whether the canvas was by Vermeer (1632-1675), because it did not look good enough, writes The Washington Post. According to a team of curators, conservators and scientists who have researched the painting, it was made by “someone close to Vermeer, not the Dutch artist himself.”
The painting, one of four works in the National Gallery’s collection attributed to de Vermeer, has been examined in a laboratory using modern techniques. That research was made possible by the corona pandemic, when the museum had to close for a longer period of time, museum employees explained at a press conference on Friday.
According to curator Marjorie Wieseman of the National Gallery, the extensive analysis of the canvas has led to an “exponential increase in our understanding of Vermeer’s work process”. That “allowed us to establish that ‘Girl with the Flute’ was not painted by Vermeer.”
Coarsely ground pigments
Compared to another work by Vermeer in the collection, ‘Girl with the Red Hat’, for example, it turned out that the paint of ‘Girl with the Flute’ was applied in a very different way. Where in the first work coarsely ground pigments were used for the lower layers and finely ground pigments for the upper layers, as Vermeer did, the latter is the other way around. As a result, the surface is much more grainy. Fragments of bristles have also been found, indicating that the painter used an old or bad brush.
“The artist has a conceptual understanding of how Vermeer constructed his paintings, but lacks the same finesse,” said Wieseman. According to the researchers, the maker of the canvas, on which the same materials are present, could be a student of Vermeer, or an amateur who was taught by him. This raises new questions, because the Delft master is regarded as an artist who worked without assistants.
The discovery was unveiled on the eve of the opening of the exhibition ‘Vermeer’s Secrets’ at the National Gallery of Art, which runs until January 8. After that, the Vermeers in the museum’s collection will be loaned to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam for the largest Vermeer retrospective exhibition ever, from February 10 to June 4, 2023. There are only about 35 known works by Vermeer in the world.