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Hello Luis Miguel,

Just wanted to drop back by and look at your beautiful posts again. I've enjoyed this artwork tremendously and I look forward to what you have planned for your next presentation.

Take care,

Cheryl

Thank you Cheryl, I feel so rewarded by your words. It is visitors like you who make it worth the effort. As to my next presentation, I hope to make the announcement shortly.

Hugs and Blessings,

Luis Miguel Goitizolo

Hello Roger,

You are so right in your appreciation of The Love Letter in the previous page. Unlike many other artists both past and modern who usually decay in their old age, Vermeer obviously kept his masterly hand to the end. His works evidence he even kept improving with the passing years. That seems to be a mark of the true genius. On the other hand, I too noted the originality of the view from a darker room. Actually it is what first caught my eye of that masterpiece. Vermeer seems to have experimented with new approaches in composition all through his painting activity.

Here is another of Vermeer maturity's master works on a similar subject, A Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid (c.1670). Here I love the contrast between the lady's rapt attention, even though very little can be made out of her facial expression, and the apparent disinterest of her maid, who makes an absolutely secondary figure even from the point of view of the perspective, and who even is looking in another direction! However, she is no less absolutely essential to the picture composition.




There are other things I particularly like in this painting, but I will only mention two relatively minor objects: the lady's lovely white cap and the red tablecloth on the forefront.

Best Wishes,

Luis Miguel Goitizolo

Dear Friends and Visitors,

There are still a couple of issues concerning Vermeers' production that I would like to address before closing this topic. One is the delicate matter of authorship. In effect, despite discrepancies from solitary voices, and using feeble or wrong criteria or simply responding to vested interests, countless dubious works have been attributed to this or that great master by "experts" without other proof that the weigh of their authority.

Without insisting too much on this, I will point at a painting that clearly suggests that I may not be wrong in my personal appreciations. Significantly, it is the painting placed the last in the complete catalog - not to mention the fact that it is the number 37 in it. You may accept or reject this, but I think Vermeer would have never painted a 37th, and obviously inferior, work once he had accomplished a corpus of 36 master pieces, 36 being a round number, a number of completion - and I am sure he would had paid at least some degree of attention to such detail.

However, there is yet another reason besides this somewhat esoteric consideration for my not accepting the present painting as authentic. It is this: unlike all other paintings accepted as Vermeer's work, I cannot say this one is a master work. And this alone should be enough evidence that it is not his work (or at least not completely, since it might perfectly have been painted totally or in part by some student).


Other considerations include the folds of the girl's shawl, unworthy of Vermeer's superb skill in the chiaroscuro technique, and the girl's somewhat clumsily painted arms and hands.

However, the main consideration for regarding Vermeer's authorship of this painting as highly dubious is perhaps the girl's face, "slightly below par," in the description of the catalog, even by his own standards. Compare with the face full of life and beauty in the below detail belonging to Lady Seated at the Virginal, a work painted in the same years.


If you are only a bit curious, then you will click on the above detail to view the whole painting. It is a magnificent master piece that unlike the work that has motivated this post, features the many exquisite (though very probably unfinished) details that are typical of Vermeer's works. What a difference indeed!

Finally, apart from this work, and unlike other great masters with high percentages of works clearly not their own but none-the-less attributed to them, I cannot say there is any other painting in Vermeer's catalog that is not clearly a master work.


Best Wishes,

Luis Miguel Goitizolo

Luis,

I tend to agree with your reasoning here.

The arms in particular are the most obvious area for concern.

The composition too doesn't FEEL right.

Fascinating.

Hi Luis,

I see what you mean, but I would have never seen it if not for your information. Very interesting.

Myrna