Experimentation and Innovation in Vermeer’s Girl with the Red Hat: New Findings from the National Gallery of Art

Johannes Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, ca. 1669, oil on panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington

Considered within the context of his biography, his overall artistic production, and the seventeenth-century Dutch market for tronies, a recent multidisciplinary investigation of Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with the Red Hat (National Gallery of Art, Washington) suggests that this small painting represents a pivotal moment in the artist’s career. Vermeer experimented here with bolder, more abstract brushwork and more highly contrasting pigments—an approach that grew out of his handling of the preparatory stages of the painting process and that he ultimately adopted in his high-life genre works as well. Positing the painting as an experimental foray that presaged Vermeer’s subsequent development also indicates a likely date of about 1669. For further exploration, see “Methodology & Resources,”First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process, and “Vermeer’s Studio and Girl with a Flute in this issue.

DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2022.14.2.2

Acknowledgements

For their precious time, careful attention, valuable insights, and generous support preparing the texts and images for this special edition of JHNA, the authors would like to thank:

·      Barbara Andersson
·      Barbara Berrie
·      Koen Bulckens
·      Perry Chapman
·      Adam Eaker
·      Kaywin Feldman
·      Francesca Gabrieli
·      Lindy Gifford
·      Catherine Goode
·      Jennifer Henel
·      Kurt Heumiller
·      Nico Van Hout
·      Anna Krekeler
·      Jay Krueger
·      Doug Lachance
·      Annelies van Loon
·      Dorothy Mahon
·      Sabrina Meloni
·      Asuka Nakada
·      Uta Neidhardt
·      Petria Noble
·      Elizabeth Pochter
·      Carol Potash
·      Henriette Rahusen
·      E. Carmen Ramos
·      Pieter Roelofs
·      Jessica Skwire Routhier
·      Eric Tollefson
·      Abbie Vandivere
·      Ige Verslype
·      Adriaan Waiboer
·      Jørgen Wadum
·      Joan Walker
·      Gregor Weber
·      Greg Williams

Johannes Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, ca. 1669, oil on panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington
Fig. 1 Johannes Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, ca. 1669, oil on panel, 22.8 x 18 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, inv. 1937.1.53 (artwork in the public domain) [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Johannes Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance, ca. 1664, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington
Fig. 2 Johannes Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance, ca. 1664, oil on canvas, 39.7 x 35.5 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Widener Collection, inv. 1942.9.97 (not shown to scale with fig. 3). (artwork in the public domain) [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Johannes Vermeer, A Lady Writing, ca. 1665, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington
Fig. 3 Johannes Vermeer, A Lady Writing, ca. 1665, oil on canvas, 45 x 39.9 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Gift of Harry Waldron Havemeyer and Horace Havemeyer Jr., in memory of their father, Horace Havemeyer, inv. 1962.10.1 (not shown to scale with fig. 2). (artwork in the public domain) [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 4 Graphic rendering of tronies by or associated with Vermeer shown in relative scale. [side-by-side viewer]
Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait, ca. 1628, oil on panel, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Fig. 5 Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait, ca. 1628, oil on panel, 22.6 cm x 18.7 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. SK-A-4691 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 6 Rembrandt, Self-Portrait (fig. 5), detail [side-by-side viewer]
Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring, ca. 1665, oil on canvas, Mauritshuis, The Hague,
Fig. 7 Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring, ca. 1665, oil on canvas, 44.5 x 39 cm. Mauritshuis, The Hague, inv. 670 (not shown to scale with fig. 8) (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Johannes Vermeer, Study of a Young Woman, ca. 1665−67, oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Fig. 8 Johannes Vermeer, Study of a Young Woman, ca. 1665−67, oil on canvas, 44.5 x 40 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, in memory of Theodore Rousseau Jr., inv. 1979.396.1 (not shown to scale with fig. 7) (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Johannes Vermeer, A Maid Asleep, ca. 1656–57, oil on canvas, 87.6 x 76.5 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Fig. 9 Johannes Vermeer, A Maid Asleep, ca. 1656–57, oil on canvas, 87.6 x 76.5 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913, inv. 14.40.611 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 10 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, detail of the XRF mercury map (histogram stretched and gamma adjusted to show low amounts of mercury) (photo: Dooley et al., “Documenting the Painting Techniques,” https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/) (see fig. 28) [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 11 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, detail of the face in the false-color IRR (red channel=2100−2400 nm, green channel=1500−1800 nm, blue channel=1100−1400 nm). The white arrow indicates black-containing shadows in the man’s face (photo: Dooley et al., “Documenting the Painting Techniques,” https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/). (see fig. 24) [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 12 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, photomicrograph (see fig. 26) [side-by-side viewer]
Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, false-color IRR, rotated 180 degrees
Fig. 13 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, false-color IRR (as in fig. 11), rotated 180 degrees, revealing the composition of a man below [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, detail of the XRF manganese map, rotated 180 degrees
Fig. 14 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, XRF manganese map, rotated 180 degrees, revealing the use of an umber-based painted sketch that lays out the man’s composition (photo: Dooley et al., “Documenting the Painting  Techniques,”  https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/) [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, XRF lead map, rotated 180 degrees
Fig. 15 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, detail of the XRF lead map, rotated 180 degrees, revealing a lead white rich underpaint in the face and collar of the man, from Dooley et al., “Documenting the Painting Techniques.“ [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 16 Vermeer, A Lady Writing, detail of the false-color IRR (as in fig. 11) [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 17 Vermeer, A Lady Writing, detail of the false-color IRR (as in fig. 11) [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 18 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, detail of the false-color IRR (as in fig. 11), rotated 180 degrees. The white arrow indicates black-containing shadows in the man’s face. [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Vermeer, Girl with Red Hat, x-radiograph, rotated 180 degrees
Fig. 19 Vermeer, Girl with Red Hat, x-radiograph rotated 180 degrees [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 20 Johannes Vermeer, The Procuress, 1656, oil on canvas, 143 x 130 cm, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, inv. 1335, x-radiograph detail of man’s face (Vermeer’s self portrait?), shown approximately to scale with fig. 19. © Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. Photo: Gerhard Rüger [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 21 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, detail of the XRF copper map, rotated 180 degrees, revealing the use of copper in the underpaint (photo: Dooley et al., “Comparing Vermeer's Painting Techniques,” https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/) [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 22 Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance, detail of the XRF copper map, showing the texture of brushstrokes in the copper-rich underpaint layer of the tablecloth (photo: Dooley et al., "Comparing Vermeer's Painting Techniques,” https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/) [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 23 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat (fig. 1), detail of the eyes [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 24 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, detail of the false-color IRR (as in fig. 11) (photo: Dooley et al., “Documenting the Painting Techniques,” https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/). The white arrows indicate an earlier placement of the eyes. [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 25 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat (fig. 1), detail. The white rectangle indicates the location of fig. 26. [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 26 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, photomicrograph. The white arrow indicates darker paint strokes of resketching visible under the final paint of the cloak. [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 27 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat (fig. 1), detail of the hat [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 28 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, detail of the XRF mercury map (as in fig. 10) (photo: Dooley et al., “Documenting the Painting Techniques,” https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/). The white arrows indicate brushstrokes of underpaint blocking out the hat. [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 29 Vermeer, A Lady Writing (fig. 3), detail of the lion’s-head finial. The white rectangle indicates the location of fig. 31 [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 30 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat (fig. 1), detail of the cloak. The white rectangle indicates the location of fig. 32. [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 31 Vermeer, A Lady Writing, photomicrograph of the finial with white arrows that indicate the painted sketch, visible through openings in the final paint [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 32 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, photomicrograph of the cloak with white arrows that indicate the painted sketch of the unfinished painting below, visible through openings in the final paint [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 33 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, photomicrograph of the face. The white arrows indicate textured underpaint (corresponding to the face of the man below) visible through thinly applied surface paint. [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 34 Vermeer, A Lady Writing (fig. 3), detail of the chin with the white arrow indicating a diagonal stroke of brushmarked underpaint [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 35 Vermeer, A Lady Writing (fig. 3), detail of sleeve [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 36 Vermeer, Study of a Young Woman (fig. 8), detail of sleeve at half the scale of fig. 35 [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 37 Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring (fig. 7), detail of sleeve at half the scale of fig. 35 [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 38 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat (fig. 1), detail of highlights on shoulder [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 39 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat (fig. 1), detail of highlights on hat [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 40 Vermeer, A Lady Writing (fig. 3), detail of highlights on the finial [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 41 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat (fig. 1), detail of highlights on the finial [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 42 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat (fig. 1), detail showing lines and stipples of yellow highlights (based on lead- tin yellow) in the final paint of the cloak [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 43 Vermeer, A Lady Writing, detail of the XRF tin map, showing the stippled yellow highlights (based on lead-tin yellow) in the underpaint of the tablecloth (photo: Dooley et al., “Comparing Vermeer's Painting Techniques,” https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/) [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 44 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat (fig. 1), detail of the white kerchief. Troughs in the final paint, created by wiping away wet paint, create the effect of translucent details in fabric. [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 45 Vermeer, A Lady Writing, detail of the XRF iron map (photo: Dooley et al., “Comparing Vermeer's Painting Techniques,” https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/). Troughs in the underpaint, created by wiping away wet paint, suggested folds in the fabric. [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 46 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat (fig. 1), detail of the face [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Michiel Sweerts, A Young Maidservant, ca. 1660, oil on canvas, The Kremer Collection
Fig. 47 Michiel Sweerts, A Young Maidservant, ca. 1660, oil on canvas, 61 x 53.5 cm. The Kremer Collection (not shown to scale with fig. 48) [side-by-side viewer]
Michiel Sweerts, Boy in a Turban Holding a Nosegay, ca. 1658–1661, oil on canvas, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Fig. 48 Michiel Sweerts, Boy in a Turban Holding a Nosegay, ca. 1658–1661, oil on canvas. 76.4 x 61.8 cm. © Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, inv. 385 (1981.19) (not shown to scale with fig. 47) [side-by-side viewer]
Johannes Vermeer, The Lacemaker, ca. 1669−1670, oil on canvas (attached to panel), Musée du Louvre, Paris
Fig. 49 Johannes Vermeer, The Lacemaker, ca. 1669−1670, oil on canvas (attached to panel), 23.9 x 20.5 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. M.I. 1448. (not shown to scale with fig. 50). Musée du Louvre, Paris / Art Resource, NY (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Johannes Vermeer, Young Woman Seated at a Virginal, ca. 1670−72, oil on canvas, Leiden Collection, New York
Fig. 50 Johannes Vermeer, Young Woman Seated at a Virginal, ca. 1670−72, oil on canvas, painted surface measures 24.7 x 19.4 cm (the tacking margins have been removed). Leiden Collection, New York, inv. JVe-100 (not shown to scale with fig. 49). Image courtesy of the Leiden Collection, New York (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Johannes Vermeer, Mistress and Maid, ca. 1666−1667, oil on canvas, Frick Collection, New York
Fig. 51 Johannes Vermeer, Mistress and Maid, ca. 1666−1667, oil on canvas, 90.2 x 78.7 cm. Frick Collection, New York, Henry Clay Frick Bequest, inv. 1919.1.126. © The Frick Collection (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Vermeer, Mistress and Maid, XRF iron map, Frick Collection, New York
Fig. 52 Vermeer, Mistress and Maid, XRF iron map, revealing the original tapestry background. See section titled “Macro-XRF,” fig. 3, in Dorothy Mahon, Silvia A. Centeno, Margaret Iacono, Federico Carό, Heike Stege and Andrea Obermeier, “Johannes Vermeer’s Mistress and Maid: New Discoveries Cast Light on Changes to the Composition and the Discoloration of Some Paint Passages,” Heritage Science 8, no. 30 (March 27, 2020), accessed May 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-020-00375-2; licensed under CC BY 4.0. [side-by-side viewer]
Johannes Vermeer, Woman Writing a Letter, with her Maid, ca. 1670, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin
Fig. 53 Johannes Vermeer, Woman Writing a Letter, with her Maid, ca. 1670, oil on canvas, 71.1 x 60.5 cm. National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, Presented, Sir Alfred and Lady Beit, 1987 (Beit Collection), inv. NGI.4537. Photo © National Gallery of Ireland (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 54 Vermeer, The Lacemaker (fig. 49), detail of the head and shoulder [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 55 Vermeer, Woman Writing a Letter, with her Maid (fig. 53), detail of the head and shoulder [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 56 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat (fig. 1), detail of the head and shoulder [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 57 Vermeer, A Lady Writing (fig. 3), detail of the head and shoulder [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 58 Vermeer, The Lacemaker (fig. 49), close detail of the threads [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 59 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat (fig. 1), close detail of the face and hat [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Johannes Vermeer, The Astronomer, 1668, oil on canvas, Musée du Louvre, Paris
Fig. 60 Johannes Vermeer, The Astronomer, 1668, oil on canvas, 51 x 45 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. RF 1983 28 (shown approximately to scale with fig. 61). Musée du Louvre, Paris / Art Resource, NY (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Johannes Vermeer, The Geographer, 1669, oil on canvas, Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main
Fig. 61 Johannes Vermeer, The Geographer, 1669, oil on canvas, 51.6 x 45.4 cm. Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, inv. 1149 (shown approximately to scale with fig. 60) (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 62 Vermeer, The Astronomer (fig. 60), detail of face [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 63 Vermeer, The Geographer (fig. 61), detail of face [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 64 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, photomicrograph of the final highlight on the face [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 65 Vermeer, The Geographer, photomicrograph of the final highlight on the face [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 66 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, fig. 1 (not shown to scale with fig. 67) [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Studio of Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Flute, ca. 1669/1675, oil on panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington
Fig. 67 Studio of Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Flute, ca. 1669/1675, oil on panel, 20 x 17.8 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Widener Collection, inv. 1942.9.98 (not shown to scale with fig. 66) (artwork in the public domain) [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
  1. 1. John Michael Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu: A Web of Social History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 363–64, doc. 439 (dated May 16, 1696), nos. 38–40.

  2. 2. Marjorie E. Wieseman, Alexandra Libby, E. Melanie Gifford, and Dina Anchin, “Vermeer’s Studio and Girl with a Flute: New Findings from the National Gallery of Art,” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 14, no. 2 (Summer 2022), DOI:10.5092/jhna.2022.14.2.3.

  3. 3. Dagmar Hirschfelder, Tronie und Porträt in der niederländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts (Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 2008); see also Lyckle de Vries, “Tronies and Other Single Figured Netherlandish Paintings,” Leids Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 8 (1990): 185–202; Dagmar Hirschfelder, “Training Piece and Sales Product: On the Functions of the Tronie in Rembrandt’s Workshop,” in Rembrandt 2006, vol. 1: Essays, ed. by Michiel Roscam Abbing, 112–33 (Leiden: Foleor, 2006); Franziska Gottwald, Das Tronie—Muster, Studie und Meisterwerk: die Genese einer Gattung der Malerei vom 15. Jahrhundert bis zu Rembrandt (München: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2011); Dagmar Hirschfelder and León Krempel, eds. Tronies: Das Gesicht in der Frühen Neuzeit (Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 2014). A forthcoming exhibition (working title: Tronies: Faces in Northern Art {1500–1700}), curated by Nico Van Hout and Koen Bulckens for the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp (October 20, 2023–January 21, 2024) and the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin (February 24 –May 26, 2024), will examine tronies in relation to the enduring fascination with the human face. We are grateful to the curators for sharing their ongoing research into tronies in northern Europe.

  4. 4. Head studies were particularly important to the Antwerp artist Frans Floris between 1553 and about 1565, as preparatory works for his larger compositions (we are grateful to Jørgen Wadum for this observation). See Carl van de Velde, Frans Floris (1519/20–1570): Leven en werken (monograph), Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, Klasse der Schone Kunsten 37, no. 30 (Brussels: Palais der Academiën, 1975). On the emerging popularity of tronies in the seventeenth century, see Hirschfelder, Tronie, 203.

  5. 5. Christopher D. M. Atkins, The Signature Style of Frans Hals: Painting, Subjectivity, and the Market in Early Modernity (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012), 301.

  6. 6. Elizabeth de Bièvre, Dutch Art and Urban Culture 1200–1700 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 230, citing Karel van Mander, Het Schilder-Boeck (Haarlem, 1604), fol. 281r.

  7. 7. On Larson, see Frits Scholten, “The Larson Family of Statuary Founders: Seventeenth-Century Reproductive Sculpture for Gardens and Painters’ Studios,” Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 31, nos. 1/2 (2004­–5): 54–89.

  8. 8. See Abraham Bredius, Künstler Inventare: Urkunden zur Geschichte der holländischen Kunst des XVIten, XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts, vol. 1 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1915), 325, 328 (Inventory of Jean Larson); Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu, 182, 266, 318–19.

  9. 9. Listed in the inventory compiled February 29, 1676, of moveable goods from the estate of Johannes Vermeer inherited by his widow, Catharina Bolnes: “Inde groote zael (“great hall”) . . . Twee schilderyen Tronyen van Fabritius; . . . Inde binnekeucken . . . Twee trony schilderyen gedaen by [Samuel van] Hoogstraten . . . Twee tronyen geschildert op sijn Turx; . . . Boven op de agtercamer . . . een trony schilderytie.” In addition, the inventory lists “6 paneelen / tien schilderdoucken” in the voorkamer. Transcription based on A. J. J. M. van Peer, “Drie collecties schilderijen van Jan Vermeer,” Oud Holland 72 (1957): 98–103; see also Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu, 339–44.

    Vermeer could have acquired the tronies by Fabritius and Hoogstraten from the artists directly—Fabritius, of course, was a close colleague in Delft. As for Samuel van Hoogstraten, Vermeer traveled to the nearby capital of Amsterdam on at least two occasions (and possibly more) and would have become familiar with artists there and the work that they produced (on Vermeer in Amsterdam, see Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu, 209, 211–12).

  10. 10. John Oliver Hand, National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection (New York: Abrams, in association with the National Gallery of Art, 2004).

  11. 11. The deliberate choice to include a figured tapestry in the background of this painting (as well as its imitator, Girl with a Flute) is a striking departure from the routinely blank backdrops of virtually every other tronie produced in northern Europe during the period. The textiles in both paintings generically resemble late sixteenth-century tapestries from the Southern Netherlands, but the forms are too vaguely rendered to permit closer identification (A. M. Louise E. Muler-Erkelens, keeper of textiles, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, to A. B. de Vries, May 7, 1974, National Gallery curatorial files). Vermeer included tapestries as hangings or table coverings in his works not only for their ability to confer a sense of grandeur and luxury, but out of an aesthetic appreciation of their colors and textures, with his livelier painted recreations of such textiles “flaunting their tactility,” as de Bièvre notes (Dutch Art and Urban Culture, 190).

  12. 12. Walter A. Liedtke, Vermeer: The Complete Paintings (Ghent: Ludion, 2008), 136. Caffa was an expensive silk velvet fabric, with patterned pile designs on a satin ground.

  13. 13. Other paintings of women wearing soft, velvet berets (with or without feathers) have been cited as possible prototypes for the hat in Vermeer’s painting. Otto Naumann, in Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk: Davaco, 1981), 2:28, suggested that Frans van Mieris’s diminutive Portrait of a Woman, dated 1658 (Städel Museum, Frankfurt) may have inspired Girl with the Red Hat, which similarly features an “unusual hat that penetrates the picture plane”; and Walter Liedtke (Complete Paintings, 136) noted that the hat in Vermeer’s painting “is very similar in size and shape to the red velvet hat in Rembrandt’s portrait of his wife Saskia in fancy dress, of about 1634–42” (Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Kassel). While both these examples are recognizable as the sort of soft velvet bonnets fashionable a century earlier and popular as fancy-dress accessories among seventeenth-century artists, the ambiguous, feathery texture and stiff form of the hat in Vermeer’s painting seem entirely his own creation.

  14. 14. In a past conservation treatment, the reverse of the panel was planed down and cradled and the panel inset within a wooden collar that covers all the original edges. Because of this structure, it has not been possible to carry out wood analysis of the support; however, the panel is visually typical of oak. Because the collar covers the end grain, it has also not been possible to carry out dendrochronology; however, new methods using specialized CT scanning may soon overcome this obstacle.

  15. 15. For a fuller discussion of this painting’s attribution history, see Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Johannes Vermeer/Girl with the Red Hat/c. 1665/1666,” in Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century, NGA Online Editions (April 24, 2014), accessed July 16, 2021, https://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/60. The attribution of Girl with the Red Hat to Vermeer was questioned by Frithjof van Thienen in Jan Vermeer of Delft (New York: Harper, 1949), 23, and rejected by several authors, including P. T. A. Swillens, in Johannes Vermeer: Painter of Delft, 1632–1675 (Utrecht: Spectrum, 1950), 65; Albert Blankert, Rob Ruurs, and Willem L. van de Watering, in Johannes Vermeer van Delft 1632–1675 (Utrecht: Het Spectrum, 1975; English ed., Oxford: Phaidon, 1978), 167–72; Yvonne Brentjens, in “Twee meisjes van Vermeer in Washington,” Tableau 7 (February 1985): 54–58; and Gilles Aillaud, Albert Blankert, and John Michael Montias, in Vermeer (Paris: Hazan, 1986), 200–1. For reactions to Blankert’s rejection of this painting, see the reviews by Christopher Brown, in Simiolus 9 (1977): 56–58; and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., in Art Bulletin 59 (September 1977): 439–41. Benjamin Binstock has attributed Girl with the Red Hat to Vermeer’s daughter Maria Vermeer; see Benjamin Binstock, Vermeer’s Family Secrets: Genius, Discovery, and the Unknown Apprentice (New York: Routledge, 2009), 247–57.

  16. 16. Léon Krempel proposed an interpretation of Girl with the Red Hat and Girl with a Flute as iconographic pendants illustrating Ecclesia and Synagoga; see Léon Krempel, “Allegorische Tronie-Paare bei Johannes Vermeer,” in Tronies: Das Gesicht in der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. Dagmar Hirschfelder and León Krempel (Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 2014), 99–107.

  17. 17.  The orientation of the chair has long puzzled art historians. Albert Blankert, Rob Ruurs, and Willem L. van de Watering (Vermeer, 109), believing that the chair belongs to the woman, insisted that the position of the finials is wrong and that they ought to face the sitter. To them, this seeming error undermined an attribution to Vermeer, whom they felt would never make such a mistake. Wheelock also noted the apparent irregularity but argued that it was in service of Vermeer’s broader artistic vision to create an integrated composition (Wheelock, “Girl with the Red Hat”).

  18. 18. Vermeer’s practice in the preparatory stages is described in detail in E. Melanie Gifford, Dina Anchin, Alexandra Libby, Marjorie E. Wieseman, Kathryn A. Dooley, Lisha Deming Glinsman, and John K. Delaney, “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process: New Findings from the National Gallery of Art,” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 14, no. 2 (Summer 2022), DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2022.14.2.1. Although an earlier study by E. Melanie Gifford—“Painting Light: Recent Observations on Vermeer’s Technique,” in Ivan Gaskell and Michiel Jonker, eds., Vermeer Studies, Studies in the History of Art 55 (New Haven: Yale University Press in association with the National Gallery of Art, 1998), 185–99—concluded, based on magnified surface examination and a limited number of paint samples, that Vermeer sometimes omitted steps in the process described here, the present study has found new evidence that each of the stages described here appear in all four paintings at the National Gallery. See Gifford et al, “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process,” for a detailed description of Vermeer’s painting practices and our terminology (via this link). We have deliberately avoided the term “dead color” (doodwerf in Dutch) since both modern and historical writers have used it in more than one context: some referring to the monochromatic painted sketch but others to the colored underpaint stage that often followed it.

  19. 19. Gifford et al, “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process,” figs. 24–27 (via this link); Kathryn A. Dooley, E. Melanie Gifford, Dina Anchin, Lisha Deming Glinsman, Marjorie E. Wieseman, Alexandra Libby, and John K. Delaney, “Documenting the Painting Techniques in Girl with the Red Hat and Girl with a Flute Using Chemical Imaging Spectroscopy,” Heritage Science (forthcoming-https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/).

  20. 20. Gifford et al, “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process” (via this link); Dooley et al., “Documenting the Painting Techniques.”

  21. 21. Gifford et al, “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process” (via this link); Dooley et al., “Documenting the Painting Techniques.”

  22. 22. See Gifford et al, “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process,” figs. 47, 48 (via this link).

  23. 23. The standard presentation of XRF maps is a grayscale image in which whiter or brighter areas signify a stronger signal for the element specified, and darker areas signify a low signal. In this inverted map, however, the darkest areas correspond to the highest concentration of copper, indicating areas with more copper drier, often incorporated into black paints.

  24. 24. For technical studies focused on Vermeer’s tronies, see Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Zur Technik zweier Bilder, die Vermeer zugeschrieben sind,” Maltechnik–Restauro 84 (1978): 242–57; Karin Groen et al., “Scientific Examination of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring,” in Gaskell and Jonker, Vermeer Studies, 169–83; and Gifford, “Painting Light.” Most recently, extensive research on the materials and techniques of Girl with a Pearl Earring was published in a suite of articles, including John K. Delaney et al., “Mapping the Pigment Distribution of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring,” Heritage Science 8, no. 4 (January 7, 2020), accessed May 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-019-0348-9; Annelies van Loon et al., “Out of the Blue: Vermeer’s Use of Ultramarine in Girl with a Pearl Earring,” Heritage Science 8, no. 25 (February 28, 2020), accessed May 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-020-00364-5; Annalies van Loon et al., “Beauty is Skin Deep: The Skin Tones of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring,” Heritage Science 7, no. 102 (December 11, 2019), accessed May 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-019-0344-0; Abbie Vandivere, “The Technical (Re-)Examination of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring,” Heritage Science 8, no. 26 (March 11, 2020), accessed May 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-020-00370-7; Abbie Vandivere et al., “Fading into the Background: The Dark Space surrounding Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring,” Heritage Science 7, no. 69 (September 16, 2019), accessed May 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-019-0311-9; Abbie Vandivere et al., “Revealing the Painterly Technique beneath the Surface of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring Using Macro- and Microscale Imaging,” Heritage Science 7, no. 64 (September 2, 2019), accessed May 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-019-0308-4; Abbie Vandivere et al., “From ‘Vermeer Illuminated’ to ‘The Girl in the Spotlight’: Approaches and Methodologies for the Scientific (Re-)Examination of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring,” Heritage Science 7, no. 66 (August 29, 2019), accessed May 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-019-0307-5; Abbie Vandivere, Jørgen Wadum, and Emiliene Leonhardt, “The Girl in the Spotlight: Vermeer at Work, His Materials and Techniques in Girl with a Pearl Earring,” Heritage Science 8, no. 20 (March 2, 2020), accessed May 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-020-0359-6.

  25. 25. Weave maps show a canvas match between Study of a Young Woman and Woman in Blue Reading a Letter (ca. 1663; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam): “Appendix 2: Matches,” Match 8, in C. Richard Johnson Jr. and William A. Sethares, eds., Counting Vermeer: Using Weave Maps to Study Vermeer’s Canvases, RKD Studies (The Hague: RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History, 2017), accessed April 18, 2022, http://countingvermeer.rkdstudies.nl/appendix-ii-matches.

  26. 26. See note 9.

  27. 27. In fact, it seems more unusual that Vermeer used canvas for his two other paintings on a similarly small scale, The Lacemaker (23.9 x 20.5 cm; Musée du Louvre, Paris) and Young Woman Seated at a Virginal (24.7 x 19.3 cm; The Leiden Collection, New York). Our thanks to Adriaan Waiboer for this observation.

  28. 28. The underlying composition of a man was known from earlier technical images (X-radiography and infrared reflectography; see Wheelock, “Girl with the Red Hat”); however, new imaging for the present study has allowed us to distinguish between the two images more precisely than was previously possible. Vermeer seems not to have been distracted by working over an underlying image; a recent study of Vermeer’s Mistress and Maid (The Frick Collection, New York) found that he painted over an intricately patterned tapestry without covering the tapestry or scraping it away. Brushstrokes of the tapestry are visible in XRF maps and in three cross-sections taken from that area; the underpaint for the tapestry remains below two layers that compose the present background of a sweeping curtain; see Dorothy Mahon et al., “Johannes Vermeer’s Mistress and Maid: New Discoveries Cast Light on Changes to the Composition and the Discoloration of Some Paint Passages,” Heritage Science 8, no. 30 (March 27, 2020), accessed May 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-020-00375-2.

  29. 29. The panel of Girl with the Red Hat was prepared with a chalk lower ground and tan upper ground or primuersel layers (composed of white lead, calcium carbonate, and earth pigments) that are found on ready-made grounded panels used by Vermeer’s contemporaries; see Ernst van de Wetering, “Painting Materials and Working Methods,” in Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 1, 1625–1631 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982), 17­–20. Jørgen Wadum suggested that the primuersel may often have been applied in the individual artist’s studio; see Jørgen Wadum, “Historical Overview of Panel-Making Techniques in the Northern Countries,” in The Structural Conservation of Panel Paintings, proceedings of a symposium at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 1995, ed. Kathleen Dardes and Andrea Rothe (Los Angeles: Getty Conservation Institute, 1998), 168. However, these preparations vary so little that it seems likely many were prepared commercially. For example, research on Vermeer’s contemporary Jan Steen found that the composition of the primuersel on Steen’s panels hardly fluctuated throughout his career; see Maya Albrecht et al., “Discovering Trends in Jan Steen’s Grounds Using Principal Component Analysis,” in Ground Layers in European Painting 1550­–1750, proceedings of Centre for Art Technological Studies and Conservation conference 5 (“Mobility Creates Masters”), June 2019, ed. Anne Haack Christensen, Angela Jager, and Joyce H. Townsend (London: Archetype, 2020), 122–23.

  30. 30. Some artists began their compositions with an underdrawing before the painted sketch. In this case, the IR image shows no evidence of a black-containing drawing. As XRF mapping systems are refined, there are new possibilities for imaging fine lines in white or red chalk below paint layers.

  31. 31. Wheelock compared the paint handling to works such as Fabritius’s Man with a Helmet (ca. 1648–49; Groninger Museum, Groningen). See Wheelock, “Zur Technik zweier Bilder,” 250; Wheelock, “Girl with the Red Hat.”

  32. 32. Martin Bailey, Vermeer (London: Phaidon, 1995), 88.

  33. 33. Walter A. Liedtke, in Walter A. Liedtke et al., Vermeer and the Delft School, exh. cat. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001), 389n8.

  34. 34. Benjamin Binstock, “The Apprenticeship of Maria Vermeer,” Artibus et Historiae 29, no. 57 (2008): 9–47.

  35. 35. Jørgen Wadum, “Contours of Vermeer,” in Gaskell and Jonker, Vermeer Studies, 214.

  36. 36. Dooley et al., “Documenting the Painting Techniques.” [for RIS analysis of underpaint shadows].

  37. 37. Marlies Giebe, “Johannes Vermeers ‘Kupplerin’: Restaurierung und Maltechnische Befunde,” in Johannes Vermeer: Bei Der Kupplerin, ed. Uta Neidhardt and Marlies Giebe, exh. cat. (Dresden: Michel Sandstein in association with Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, 2004), 49, 53.

  38. 38. Rubens, for example, seems to have reused paintings from earlier in his career that he had saved but later saw as expendable; see Clare Richardson and Kate Stonor, “The Conversion of Saint Paul Series at the Courtauld: Rubens’s Artistic Process Revealed by New Technical Discoveries,” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 13, no. 1 (Winter 2021), 7–11, accessed May 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.5092/jhna.2021.13.1.1.

  39. 39. In Girl with a Pearl Earring, Vermeer used a copper drier in the dark green final glaze of the background, an area he painted with slow-drying pigments, but not in the black-containing underpaint of the background; see Vandivere et al., “Fading.”

  40. 40. E. Melanie Gifford and Lisha Deming Glinsman, “Collective Style and Personal Manner: Materials and Techniques of High-Life Genre Painting,” in Adriaan E. Waiboer, Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., and Blaise Ducos, Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting, exh. cat. (New Haven: Yale University Press in association with the National Gallery of Ireland, 2017), 69–70.

  41. 41. Gifford et al, “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process” (via this link).

  42. 42. Research on Girl with a Pearl Earring and Girl with the Red Hat does not offer definitive evidence that might distinguish Vermeer’s brown sketch, if he used one, from the other layers. In Girl with a Pearl Earring, umber appears in the ground, but a single umber-based layer corresponding to the painted sketch was not detected in paint samples (Vandivere et al., “Revealing”), although in the jacket an underlayer that ranges in color from light brown on the lit side to brown-black in the shadow was observed with magnified examination. In Girl with the Red Hat, magnified examination of the surface compared to the false-color IRR image and the XRF map for manganese shows that umber was used in both the unfinished image of a man and in the underpaint of the young woman’s image, but it was not possible to confirm definitively that Vermeer used an independent painted sketch to prepare the final image.

  43. 43. These swirls seem to fill the same function as the small dark dots that first positioned the eyes in Girl with the Pearl Earring (Vandivere et al., “Revealing”).

  44. 44. PLM analysis of sample T1823 found primarily isotropic earth and ultramarine, with CaCO3, umber, black, and traces of lead-tin yellow and red lake.

  45. 45. Gifford et al, “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process” (via this link).

  46. 46. Vandivere et al. concluded it was not possible to establish whether these lines were applied before or after the freely brushed underlayer (Vandivere et al., “Revealing”).

  47. 47. Vandivere et al., “Revealing”; Vandivere et al., “Fading.” Interestingly, Vermeer does not seem to have used copper drier in this underpaint.

  48. 48. We are grateful to colleagues at the department of paintings conservation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for access to the X-radiograph.

  49. 49. This modifies the proposal in an earlier publication that the underlying man’s cloak could have unconsciously inspired the hat’s unusual shape; see E. Melanie Gifford, “Material as Metaphor: Non-Conscious Thinking in Seventeenth Century Painting Practice,” in Studying Old Master Paintings: Technology and Practice, ed. Marika Spring (London: Archetype in association with The National Gallery, 2011), 165–72. Using the new false-color infrared image of Girl with the Red Hat, combined with highly magnified examination of the painting’s surface, we now know that the lines that closely parallel the hat (and appear brownish in the false-color infrared reflectance image) originated in Vermeer’s own underpaint for the tapestry background. However, several other blackish strokes at varied diagonals do correspond to the man’s cloak.

  50. 50. SEM-EDS analysis identified low levels of copper in the final paint; copper found in the underpaint is at twice this level. Gifford et al, “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process” (via this link).

  51. 51. Previously, this painting’s effect has been described more generally as embodying “unusual spontaneity and informality”; see Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., Vermeer & the Art of Painting (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 124.

  52. 52. The lighted finial in Girl with the Red Hat is just 25 percent larger than the one in A Lady Writing, but the white highlights are roughly four times as large.

  53. 53. See Gifford et al, “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process” (via this link). As noted there, it is possible that small amounts of pigments of high atomic weight (such as lead white) in the overlying paint layer can suppress a signal from the layers below (the matrix effect) and so modify the appearance of the underlayer in element maps. In this case, however, the difference between the smooth application pattern of lead white in the final paint (seen in the M-line map for lead) and the brush-marked pattern of lead-tin yellow in the underpaint (seen in the tin map) seems clearly related to a difference in paint handling between the final paint and underpaint.

  54. 54. Gifford et al, “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process” (via this link).

  55. 55. Gifford et al, “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process” (via this link).

  56. 56. In Girl with the Red Hat, the long strokes for highlights on the cloak and the troughs in the kerchief are both up to two millimeters wide, as are the troughs seen in the XRF map for iron in A Lady Writing.

  57. 57. Vandivere, Wadum, and Leonhardt, “The Girl in the Spotlight.” It is also possible that old damage such as paint abrasion has blurred contrasts that were originally more pronounced.

  58. 58. Gifford et al, “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process” (via this link); Dooley et al., “Documenting the Painting Techniques.”

  59. 59. Pigments throughout the flesh tones in the paintings included in this discussion were identified using a combination of techniques, including polarized light microscopy, fiber optic reflectance spectroscopy, and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy.

  60. 60. Gifford and Glinsman found evidence of green earth in most of the paintings by Vermeer included in that study (in later works, this pigment appears in the shadows of flesh tones as well as interior features such as fabrics) but in only two paintings by other high-life genre artists (Gifford and Glinsman, “Collective Style and Personal Manner,” 82). Gifford and Glinsman’s examinations found that Nicholas Maes used green earth in a curtain but not in flesh tones in The Listening Housewife (1656; Wallace Collection, London) and that Pieter de Hooch used green earth as an inexpensive replacement for ultramarine in the shadows of white satin late in his career (The Greeting, ca. 1675; National Gallery of Art, Washington).

  61. 61. Govaert Flinck (1615–1660) was also representative of this trend. Although Flinck began his career as a pupil of Rembrandt and initially painted tronies of characterful older men and women, from the 1650s his single-figured paintings skewed decidedly toward attractive younger women, deliberately avoiding extreme displays of expression and emotion or unusual physiognomies. See Hirschfelder, Tronie, 242.

  62. 62. See Guido Jansen and Peter C. Sutton, eds., Michiel Sweerts (1618–1664), exh. cat. (Zwolle: Waanders in association with the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; and Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art, Hartford, 2002), 23.

  63. 63. Liedtke, Complete Paintings, 132.

  64. 64. See Arie Wallert, “The Materials and Methods of Michiel Sweerts’s Paintings,” in Jansen and Sutton, Michiel Sweerts, 44–47.

  65. 65. Paintings by Sweerts showing an underpaint layer that is more strongly brushmarked than the final paint include Head of a Woman, ca. 1654, oil on panel, 50.6 x 37.5 cm, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

  66. 66. Hoogstraten seems to have painted tronies for just a limited period in the 1640s, the majority of them self-portraits in elaborate costumes; see Hirschfelder, Tronie, 197; and Celeste Brusati, Artifice and Illusion: The Art and Writing of Samuel van Hoogstraten (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 346–54, 367–68. In 1647, “Een trony van Hoochstraeten,” formerly owned by the painter Abraham van Beijeren, brought 14 guilders, 5 stuivers at the sale of paintings by members of the St. Luke’s Guild in The Hague; see Michiel Roscam Abbing, De schilder en schrijver Samuel van Hoogstraten 1627–1678: Eigentijdse bronnen en oeuvre van gesigneerde schilderijen (Leiden: Primavera Pers, 1993), 89. The presence of tronies by Fabritius in several seventeenth-century inventories suggests that they were a significant part of his output. Seven tronies are among the paintings listed in the 1643 inventory of the effects of Fabritius’s first wife, Aeltge Velthuysen. None are attributed, but at least some of them—including some described as aangesmeerde, or “smeared,” meaning perhaps unfinished, and others kept in the painter’s working rooms—would undoubtedly have been by Fabritius; see Notariël Archief, notaris D. de l’Homel (1628, ff. 377–399), Stadsarchief Amsterdam; published in Abraham Bredius, “Het Schildersregister van Jan Sysmus, Stads Doctor te Amsterdam, II,” Oud-Holland 8 (1890), 226–27; see also Christopher Brown, Carel Fabritius: Complete Edition with a Catalogue Raisonné (Oxford: Phaidon, 1981), 17, 147. Although not universally accepted as a work by Carel Fabritius, Woman with a Pearl Earring (Portrait of a Woman in Profile), dated 1654 (Niedersächsische Landesmuseum, Hannover), has interesting compositional parallels with Vermeer’s tronies: generalized garments, striking headgear, and a prominent pearl earring.

  67. 67. John Michael Montias’s study of Amsterdam inventories determined that between 1620 and 1649, painted tronies comprised 3.3 percent of collections with attributed paintings; between 1650 and 1679, approximately 2.4 percent—a small but significant percentage. See John Michael Montias, “Works of Art in Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam,” in Art in History/History in Art: Studies in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Culture, ed. David Freedberg and Jan de Vries (Santa Monica: Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1991), 350–51, table 2. Figures may have been somewhat lower in other cities; John Loughman estimated that 1.6 percent of paintings in Dordrecht inventories analyzed were tronies; see John Loughman, “Een stad en haar kunstconsumptie: Openbare en privé-verzamelingen in Dordrecht, 1620–1719,” in De Zichtbaere Werelt: Schilderkunst uit de gouden eeuw in Hollands oudste stad, ed. Pieter Marijnissen, exh. cat. (Zwolle: Waanders in association with the Dordrechts Museum, 1992), 47. Montias’s figures for Delft collections do not differentiate between portraits and tronies; see John Michael Montias, Artists and Artisans in Delft: A Socio-Economic Study of the Seventeenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 242, table 8.3. These figures must be regarded as rough estimates only, as it is impossible to assess how (or whether) most seventeenth-century notaries would have distinguished between an unidentified portrait and a tronie.

  68. 68. Their average price was 2.7 guilders in 1597–1619 and 2.3 guilders in 1620–1638; by comparison, genre paintings sold during the latter period for an average of 17.9 guilders. See John Michael Montias, Art at Auction in 17th Century Amsterdam (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2002), 91.

  69. 69. Hirschfelder, Tronie, 233, 235.

  70. 70. Hirschfelder, Tronie, 238.

  71. 71. Tronies seem to have been especially abundant in the collections of artists and dealers. During 1597–1638, in Amsterdam auction sales featuring paintings sold at the request of artists and art dealers, tronies represented 20 percent of all known subjects, a percentage far in excess of their proportion in estate sales; see Montias, Art at Auction, 88. In all other inventories, tronies accounted for 13 percent in 1597–1619 and 2 percent in 1620–1638.

  72. 72. Hirschfelder, Tronie, 238–39, with further references.

  73. 73. In the sale of paintings from the Dissius collection in May 1696, the National Gallery’s Woman Holding a Balance (referred to in the catalogue as “A young lady weighing gold, in a box by J. van der Meer of Delft, extraordinarily artful and vigorously painted”) sold for 155 guilders, and the Rijksmuseum’s Milkmaid (“A maid pouring out milk, extremely well done, by ditto”) sold for 175 guilders; the least expensive genre painting by Vermeer (“A young lady doing needlework, by the same,” likely to be identified with the diminutive Lacemaker) sold for 28 guilders. See Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu, 363–64, doc. 439 (dated May 16, 1696), nos. 1–2, 12). In 1699, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Allegory of Faith (listed as “A seated woman with several meanings representing the New Testament by Vermeer of Delft, vigorously and glowingly painted”) fetched four hundred guilders during the sale of Herman van Swoll’s collection. See Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu, 364, doc. 440 (dated April 11, 1699).

  74. 74. Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu, 363­–64, doc. 439 (dated May 16, 1696), nos. 38–40.

  75. 75. Rather than commissioning specific works, Van Ruijven probably exercised a sort of “right of first refusal,” with Vermeer offering him the option to purchase any painting he produced. John Michael Montias, “Recent Archival Research on Vermeer,” in Gaskell and Jonker, Vermeer Studies, 95. On Vermeer’s finances generally, see Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu, 183–86.

  76. 76. Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu, 344–45, doc. 367 (dated April 24 and 30, 1676).

  77. 77. On van Aelst’s flexible and pragmatic approach to production in his late works, see E. Melanie Gifford et al., “The Making of a Luxury Image: Van Aelst’s Painting Materials and Artistic Techniques,” in Tanya Paul et al., Elegance and Refinement: The Still-Life Paintings of Willem van Aelst, exh. cat. (New York: Skira Rizzoli, 2012), 80–84.

  78. 78. It has not been possible to make direct comparison of ground samples from the two paintings, but analysis of The Lacemaker found a ground consisting of chalk, lead white, and umber; see Herman Kühn, “A Study of the Pigments and the Grounds Used by Jan Vermeer,” Reports and Studies in the History of Art 2 (1968): 158, 195. Analysis of Young Woman Seated at a Virginal reported lead white and chalk toned with red and yellow earths, lamp black, and umber; see Libby Sheldon and Nicola Costaras, “Johannes Vermeer’s ‘Young Woman Seated at a Virginal,’” The Burlington Magazine 148, no. 1235 (2006): 93. Canvas weave analysis has established that the two canvases came from the same bolt; see Walter A. Liedtke, Richard C. Johnson, and Don H. Johnson, “Canvas Matches in Vermeer: A Case Study in the Computer Analysis of Fabric Supports,” Metropolitan Museum Journal 47 (2012): 102–5; and Johnson and Sethares, “Appendix 2: Matches,” Match 1, in Counting Vermeer. The painted surface of Young Woman Seated at a Virginal measures 24.7 x 19.4 cm (the tacking margins have been removed). The canvas of The Lacemaker has been mounted onto a wood panel, but based on evidence of the original tacking margins and strainer bar marks found in X-radiographic examination, the original format must have been 24.5 x 19.3 cm; see Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. et al., Johannes Vermeer, exh. cat. (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art in association with the Mauritshuis, 1995), 176, under “Technical Description.”

  79. 79. Johnson and Sethares, Counting Vermeer, §6.1 (“Weave Matches”).

  80. 80. Vermeer was not alone in using an underlying composition as a site for experimentation. Rubens not only reused supports for entirely different compositions (presumably as an economy; see Richardson and Stonor, “The Conversion of Saint Paul Series,” 7–11), but he also retained his own earlier works for experimentation and inspiration; see E. Melanie Gifford, “Rubens’s Invention and Evolution: Material Evidence in The Fall of Phaeton,” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 11, no. 2 (Summer 2019), accessed May 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.5092/jhna.2019.11.2.1.

  81. 81. Although it might seem distracting, many artists have painted on reused supports without obscuring the underlying composition by applying a new ground layer. The absence of an intervening layer can be easily recognized during magnified examination of the painting or with the aid of cross-sections. Examples of genre paintings by other artists made on salvaged supports include Jan Steen, Doctor’s Visit (ca. 1665–68, oil on panel, Mauritshuis, The Hague, inv. 168; painted over an uncompleted composition possibly by Steen himself, turned 90 degrees); Jacobus Vrel, Street Scene with a Bakery by the Town Wall (n.d., oil on panel, private collection; painted over what appears to be an architectural view) and Woman at the Hearth (n.d., oil on panel, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. SK-A-1592; painted on a fragment cut from a much earlier painting, probably a portrait). On Steen, see Sabrina Meloni, “A Recycled Panel,” Mauritshuis in Focus 24, no. 2 (2011): 32; for the paintings by Vrel, see Jens Wagner and Heike Stege, “The Examination of Selected Panels by Jacobus Vrel using Imaging Methods,” in Berndt Ebert, Cécile Tainturier, and Quentin Buvelot, Jacobus Vrel: Searching for Clues to an Enigmatic Artist, exh. cat. (Munich: Hirmer, 2021), 145. Our thanks to Jonathan Bikker and Quentin Buvelot for drawing our attention to many of these examples.

  82. 82. Ernst van de Wetering, “Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits: Problems of Authenticity and Function,” in Ernst van de Wetering et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 4, The Self-Portraits (Dordrecht: Springer, 2005), 96. See also, for example, Rembrandt’s Interior with Figures (La main chaud) (ca. 1628, oil on panel, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, NGI.439; painted over a bust-length portrait of a man, turned 90 degrees).

  83. 83. Parenthetically, it might be noted that Delft was the most important (and virtually the only) tapestry-producing center in the Northern Netherlands in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, producing a range of wares for courtly, civic, and private patrons throughout the United Provinces. On the tapestry industry in Delft, see M. I. E. van Zijl, “De Delftse Wandtapijten,” in Ineke V. T. Spaander and Rein-Arend Leeuw, De Stad Delft: Cultuur en maatschappij van 1572 tot 1667, exh. cat. (Delft: Stedelijk Museum Het Prinsenhof, 1981), 202–9.

  84. 84. Vermeer seems to have ventured a less radical textile backdrop to a tronie head in Girl with a Pearl Earring, where recent technical examination has determined that the background of the painting, now an uneven dark tone, may have originally been painted to suggest a curtain or swag of dark green fabric. See Vandivere et al., “Fading.”

  85. 85. On Mistress and Maid, see Mahon et al., “Johannes Vermeer’s Mistress and Maid.”

  86. 86. On Vermeer’s use of green earth in flesh tones in his later works, see Helen Howard, “Vermeer and Technique: Vermeer’s Palette,” in “Research: The Meaning of Making,” The National Gallery (London) website, accessed March 10, 2022, https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/research/about-research/the-meaning-of-making/vermeer-and-technique/vermeers-palette; Sheldon and Costaras, “Johannes Vermeer’s ‘Young Woman Seated at a Virginal,’” 94–5; and Nicola Costaras, “A Study of the Materials and Techniques of Johannes Vermeer,” in Gaskell and Jonker, Vermeer Studies, 159–60.

  87. 87. Wadum, “Contours,” 206­–7.

  88. 88. Tancred Borenius, “The New Vermeer,” Apollo 2 (July–December 1925): 125–26; Wilhelm R. Valentiner, “Zum 300: Geburtstag Jan Vermeers, Oktober 1932: Vermeer und die Meister der Holländischen Genremalerei,” Pantheon 5 (October 1932): 305–24. Lawrence Gowing, in Vermeer (London: Faber and Faber, 1952), 56, included the painting in Vermeer’s “last phase,” alongside Girl with a Flute and Mistress and Maid; André Malraux, in Vermeer de Delft (Paris: Gallimard, 1952), 21–22, 94, 96, 104, no. 27, placed it “after 1670”; and Leonard J. Slatkes, in Vermeer and His Contemporaries (New York: Abbeville Press, 1981), 97, dated it to about 1671–1672. In proposing the painting as an early self-portrait by Vermeer’s eldest daughter, Maria, Binstock (Vermeer’s Family Secrets, 249–57 passim; 293, 298) dates it to 1672.

  89. 89. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr, Jan Vermeer (New York: Abrams, 1981), 130.

  90. 90. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Johannes Vermeer/Girl with the Red Hat,” in Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century: The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue (Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1995), 385.

  91. 91. Gifford examined The Geographer with a stereomicroscope in the conservation department of the Städel Museum, Frankfurt, in 2015 (photomicrographs and examination notes dated August 20, 2015, are on file at the National Gallery, Washington). Comparisons to The Astronomer were made using a digital image available online (https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/the-astronomer-johannes-vermeer/bQELiVC_QJaAlQ?hl=en, accessed February 8, 2022).

  92. 92. C. Richard Johnson Jr., and William A. Sethares, “Canvas Weave Match Supports Designation of Vermeer’s Geographer and Astronomer as a Pendant Pair,” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 9, no. 1 (Winter 2017), accessed May 9, 2022, https://doi.org/10.5092/jhna.2017.9.1.17; Johnson and Sethares, “Appendix 2: Matches,” Match 4, in Counting Vermeer.

  93. 93. Wieseman et al., “Vermeer’s Studio and Girl with a Flute” (via this link).

Note: The bibliography represents all articles in JHNA Issue 14.2 and is repeated in each article.

Aillaud, Gilles, Albert Blankert, and John Michael Montias. Vermeer. Paris: Hazan, 1986.

Albrecht, Maya, Sabrina Meloni, Annelies van Loon, Ralph Haswell, and Onno de Noord. “Discovering Trends in Jan Steen’s Grounds Using Principal Component Analysis.” In Ground Layers in European Painting 1550–1750. Proceedings of Centre for Art Technological Studies and Conservation conference 5 (“Mobility Creates Masters”), Copenhagen, June 2019, edited by Anne Haack Christensen, Angela Jager, and Joyce H. Townsend, 118–31. London: Archetype, 2020.

Atkins, Christopher D. M. The Signature Style of Frans Hals: Painting, Subjectivity, and the Market in Early Modernity. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012.

Bailey, Anthony. A View of Delft: Vermeer Then and Now. London: Chatto & Windus, 2001.

Bailey, Martin. Vermeer. London: Phaidon, 1995.

Bakker, Piet. “Gerrit Dou and His Collectors in the Golden Age” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed., edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Lara Yeager-Crasselt (New York, 2020–). Accessed April 5, 2022. https://theleidencollection.com/essays/gerrit-dou-and-his-collectors-in-the-golden-age.

———. “Painters of and for the Elite: Relationships, Prices and Familiarity with Each Other’s Work.” In Waiboer, Wheelock, and Ducos, Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting, 85–99.

Baxandall, Michael. Patterns of Intention: On the Historical Explanation of Pictures. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1985.

Bièvre, Elizabeth de. Dutch Art and Urban Culture 1200–1700. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2015.

Binstock, Benjamin. “The Apprenticeship of Maria Vermeer.” Artibus et Historiae 29, no. 57 (2008): 9–47.

———. Vermeer’s Family Secrets: Genius, Discovery, and the Unknown Apprentice. New York: Routledge, 2009.

Blankert, Albert. Museum Bredius: Catalogus van de schilderijen en tekeningen. The Hague: Dienst voor Schone Kunsten der Gemeente ’s-Gravenhage, 1978.

Blankert, Albert, Rob Ruurs, and Willem L. van de Watering. Vermeer van Delft 1632–1675. Utrecht: Spectrum, 1975; published in English as Vermeer of Delft: Complete Edition of the Paintings. Oxford: Phaidon, 1978.

Borenius, Tancred. “The New Vermeer.” Apollo 2, no. 3 (September 1925): 125–26.

Bredius, Abraham. Künstler Inventare; Urkunden zur Geschichte der holländischen Kunst des XVIten, XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts. 7 vols. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1915–22.

———. “Het Schildersregister van Jan Sysmus, stads-doctor te Amsterdam, II.” Oud Holland 8 (1890): 217–34.

Brentjens, Yvonne. “Twee meisjes van Vermeer in Washington.” Tableau 7, no. 4 (February 1985): 54–58.

Brown, Christopher. Carel Fabritius: Complete Edition with a Catalogue Raisonné. Oxford: Phaidon, 1981.

———. Review of Johannes Vermeer van Delft 1632–1675, by Albert Blankert, Rob Ruurs, and Willem L. van de Watering. Simiolus 9, no. 1 (1977): 56–58.

Brusati, Celeste. Artifice and Illusion: The Art and Writing of Samuel van Hoogstraten. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

Bürger, Willem [Étienne Joseph Théophile Thoré]. “Van der Meer de Delft.” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 21 (July–December 1866): 297–330; 458–75; 542–75.

Costaras, Nicola. “A Study of the Materials and Techniques of Johannes Vermeer.” In Gaskell and Jonker, Vermeer Studies, 144–167.

Cropper, Elizabeth. The Domenichino Affair: Novelty, Imitation, and Theft in Seventeenth-Century Rome. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.

Delaney, John K., Kathryn A. Dooley, Annelies van Loon, and Abbie Vandivere. “Mapping the Pigment Distribution of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring.” Heritage Science 8, no. 4 (January 7, 2020). Accessed May 2, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-019-0348-9.

Dooley, Kathryn A., E. Melanie Gifford, Dina Anchin, Lisha Demming Glinsman, Marjorie E. Wieseman, Alexandra Libby, and John K. Delaney. “Comparing Vermeer’s Painting Techniques in Woman Holding a Balance and A Lady Writing Using Chemical Imaging Spectroscopy.” Heritage Science (forthcoming-https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/).

Eastaugh, Nicholas, Valentine Walsh, Tracey Chaplin and Ruth Siddall. The Pigment Compendium 2017. Rev. ed. (e-version). London: The Pigmentum Project, 2016.

Ekkart, Rudolf E. O. “Het portret van de familie Meerman door Pieter van Slingelandt.” In De Arte et Libris: Festschrift Erasmus, 1934–1984, edited by Abraham Horodisch, 69–75. Amsterdam: Erasmus Antiquariaat en Boekhandel, 1984.

Filipczak, Zirka Z. “Vermeer, Elusiveness, and Visual Theory.” Simiolus 32, no. 4 (2006): 259–72.

Gaskell, Ivan and Michiel Jonker, eds., Vermeer Studies 55. New Haven: Yale University Press in association with the National Gallery of Art, 1998.

Giebe, Marlies. “Johannes Vermeers ‘Kupplerin’: Restaurierung Und Maltechnische Befunde.” In Uta Neidhardt and Marlies Giebe, eds., Johannes Vermeer: Bei der Kupplerin, 39–64. Exh. cat. Dresden: Michel Sandstein in association with Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, 2004.

Gifford, E. Melanie. “Evocation and Representation: Rembrandt’s Landscape Painting Technique.” In Christiaan Vogelaar and Gregor J. M. Weber, eds., Rembrandt’s Landscapes, 120–43. Exh. cat. Zwolle: Waanders in association with Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Museen Kassel/Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden, 2006.

———. “Fine Painting and Eloquent Imprecision: Gabriel Metsu’s Painting Technique.” In Adriaan E. Waiboe, Gabriel Metsu, 154–79. New Haven: Yale University Press in association with the National Gallery of Art, 2010.

———. “Lievens’ Technique: ‘Wonders in Smeared Paint, Varnishes and Oils.’” In Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered, edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., 41–53. Exh. cat. New Haven: Yale University Press in association with the National Gallery of Art, 2008.

———. “Material as Metaphor: Non-Conscious Thinking in Seventeenth Century Painting Practice.” In Studying Old Master Paintings: Technology and Practice, edited by Marika Spring, 165–72. London: Archetype in association with The National Gallery, 2011.

———. “Painting Light: Recent Observations on Vermeer’s Technique.” In Gaskell and Jonker, Vermeer Studies, 185–99.

———. “Rubens’s Invention and Evolution: Material Evidence in The Fall of Phaeton,” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 11, no. 2 (Summer 2019). Accessed May 2, 2022. https://doi.org/10.5092/jhna.2019.11.2.1.

Gifford, E. Melanie, Anikó Bezur, Andrea Guidi di Bagno, and Lisha Deming Glinsman, “The Making of a Luxury Image: Van Aelst’s Painting Materials and Artistic Techniques.” In Tanya Paul, James Clifton, Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., and Julie Hochstrasser, Elegance and Refinement: The Still-Life Paintings of Willem van Aelst, 80–84. Exh. cat. New York: Skira Rizzoli, 2012.

Gifford, E. Melanie, and Lisha Deming Glinsman, “Collective Style and Personal Manner: Materials and Techniques of High-Life Genre Painting.” In Waiboer, Wheelock, and Ducos, Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting, 65–84, 270–74.

Gifford, E. Melanie, Dina Anchin, Alexandra Libby, Marjorie E. Wieseman, Kathryn A. Dooley,  Lisha Deming Glinsman, John K. Delaney. “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process: New Findings from the National Gallery of Art,” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 14:2 (Summer 2022). DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2022.14.2.1.

Gifford, E. Melanie, Kathryn A. Dooley, John K. Delaney. “Methodology & Resources: New Findings from the National Gallery of Art.” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 14:2 (Summer 2022). DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2022.14.2.4.

Gimpel, René. Diary of an Art Dealer, 1918–1939. Translated by John Rosenberg. New York: Universe Books, 1987.

Gottwald, Franziska. Das Tronie: Muster, Studie und Meisterwerk: die Genese einer Gattung der Malerei vom 15. Jahrhundert bis zu Rembrandt. München: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2011.

Gowing, Lawrence. Vermeer. London: Faber and Faber, 1952.

Graaf, Johannes Alexander van de. “Het De Mayerne manuscript als bron voor de schildertechniek van de barok. Brit. Mus., Sloane 2052.” PhD. thesis, Rijksuniversteit te Utrecht, 1958.

Groen, Karin. “Painting Technique in the Seventeenth Century in Holland and the Possible Use of the Camera Obscura by Vermeer.” In Wolfgang Lefèvre, ed., Inside the Camera Obscura: Optics and Art under the Spell of the Projected Image, 195–210. Berlin: Max-Planck Institute for the History of Science, 2007.

Groen, Karin, Inez D. van der Werf, Klaas Jan van den Berg and Jaap J. Boon. “Scientific Examination of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring.” In Gaskell and Jonker, Vermeer Studies, 169–183.

Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. New York: Abrams in association with the National Gallery of Art, 2004.

Hirschfelder, Dagmar. “Training Piece and Sales Product: On the Functions of the Tronie in Rembrandt’s Workshop.” In Rembrandt 2006. Vol. 1: Essays, edited by Michiel Roscam Abbing, 112–33. Leiden: Foleor, 2006.

———. Tronie und Porträt in der niederländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts. Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 2008.

Hirschfelder, Dagmar, and León Krempel, eds. Tronies: Das Gesicht in der Frühen Neuzeit. Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 2014.

Houbraken, Arnold. De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen. 3 vols. Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague: J. Swart, C. Boucquet, and M. Gaillard, 1753; reprint, Amsterdam: B. M. Israël, 1976.

Van Hout, Nico. “Functies van Doodverf: De onderschildering en andere onderliggende stadia in het werk van P. P. Rubens.” PhD thesis, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 2005. Accessed April 23, 2022. https://lirias.kuleuven.be/retrieve/66039.

Howard, Helen. “Vermeer and Technique: Paint Application.” In “Research: The Meaning of Making,” The National Gallery (London) website. Accessed March 10, 2022. https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/research/about-research/the-meaning-of-making/vermeer-and-technique/paint-application.

———. “Vermeer and Technique: Secrets of the Studio.” In “Research: The Meaning of Making,” The National Gallery (London) website. Accessed May 4, 2022. https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/research/about-research/the-meaning-of-making/vermeer-and-technique/secrets-of-the-studio.

———. “Vermeer and Technique: Vermeer’s Palette.” In “Research: The Meaning of Making,” The National Gallery (London) website. Accessed March 10, 2022. https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/research/about-research/the-meaning-of-making/vermeer-and-technique/vermeers-palette.

Libby, Alexandra, E. Melanie Gifford, Dina Anchin, Marjorie E. Wieseman, Kathryn A. Dooley, Lisha Deming Glinsman, John K. Delaney. “Experimentation and Innovation in Vermeer’s Girl with the Red Hat: New Findings from the National Gallery of Art.” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 14:2 (Summer 2022) DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2022.14.2.2.

Jager, Ronald de. “Meester, leerjongen, leertijd: Een analyse van zeventiende-eeuwse Noord-Nederlandse leerlingscontracten van kunstschilders, goud- en zilversmeden.” Oud Holland 104, no. 2 (1990): 69–111.

Jansen, Guido, and Peter C. Sutton, eds. Michiel Sweerts (1618–1664). Exh. cat. Zwolle: Waanders in association with the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art, Hartford, 2002.

Johnson, C. Richard, Jr., and William A. Sethares. “Canvas Weave Match Supports Designation of Vermeer’s Geographer and Astronomer as a Pendant Pair.” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 9, no. 1 (Winter 2017). Accessed April 18, 2022. https://doi.org/10.5092/jhna.2017.9.1.17.

Johnson, C. Richard, Jr., and William A. Sethares, eds. Counting Vermeer: Using Weave Maps to Study Vermeer’s Canvases, RKD Studies. The Hague: RKD (Netherlands Institute for Art History), 2017; reissued September 23, 2020. Accessed April 18, 2022. https://countingvermeer.rkdstudies.nl/contents.

Kolfin, Elmer, Carol Pottasch, and Ruth Hoppe. “The Metamorphosis of Diana.” ArtMatters: Netherlands Technical Studies in Art 1 (2002): 90–103.

Krempel, Leon. “Allegorische Tronie-Paare bei Johannes Vermeer.” In Hirschfelder and Krempel, Tronie, 97–112.

Kühn, Herman. “A Study of the Pigments and the Grounds Used by Jan Vermeer.” Reports and Studies in the History of Art 2 (1968): 154–202.

Laurenze-Landsberg, Claudia. “Neutron-Autoradiography of Two Paintings by Jan Vermeer in the Gemäldegalerie Berlin.” In Wolfgang Lefèvre, ed., Inside the Camera Obscura: Optics and Art under the Spell of the Projected Image, 213–25. Berlin: Max-Planck Institute for the History of Science, 2007.

Levy-Halm, Koos. “Where Did Vermeer Buy His Painting Materials? Theory and Practice.” In Gaskell and Jonker, Vermeer Studies, 137–43.

Libby, Alexandra, and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. “Johannes Vermeer/A Lady Writing/c. 1665,” Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century, NGA Online Editions, April 24, 2014; revised December 9, 2019. Accessed July 16, 2021. https://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/46437.

Liedtke, Walter A. “Dutch Paintings in America.” In B. P. J. Broos, Edwin Buijsen, Rieke van Leeuwen, and Hans Hoetink, eds., Great Dutch Paintings from America, 14–59. Exh. cat. Zwolle: Waanders in association with the Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis, 1990.

———. Vermeer: The Complete Paintings. Ghent: Ludion, 2008.

Liedtke, Walter A., Richard C. Johnson, and Don H. Johnson. “Canvas Matches in Vermeer: A Case Study in the Computer Analysis of Fabric Supports.” Metropolitan Museum Journal 47 (2012): 101–8.

Liedtke, Walter A., and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. “Young Woman Seated at a Virginal.” In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed., edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 2020– . Accessed January 11, 2022. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/young-woman-seated-at-a-virginal.

Liedtke, Walter A., Michiel Plomp, Axel Rüger, and Renier Baarsen. Vermeer and the Delft School. Exh. cat. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001.

Loon, Annelies van, Alessa A. Gambardella, Victor Gonzalez, Marine Cotte, Wout De Nolf, Katrien Keune, Emilien Leonhardt, Suzan de Groot, Art Ness Proaño Gaibor, and Abbie Vandivere. “Out of the Blue: Vermeer’s Use of Ultramarine in Girl with a Pearl Earring.” Heritage Science 8, no. 25 (February 28, 2020). Accessed May 2, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-020-00364-5.

Loon, Annelies van, Abbie Vandivere, John K. Delaney, Kathryn A. Dooley, Steven De Meyer, Frederik Vanmeert, Victor Gonzalez, Koen Janssens, Emilien Leonhardt, Ralph Haswell, Suzan de Groot, Paolo D’Imporzano and Gareth R. Davies. “Beauty is Skin Deep: The Skin Tones of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring.” Heritage Science 7, no. 102 (December 11, 2019). Accessed May 2, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-019-0344-0.

Loughman, John. “Een stad en haar kunstconsumptie: Openbare en privé-verzamelingen in Dordrecht, 1620–1719.” In De Zichtbaere Werelt: Schilderkunst uit de gouden eeuw in Hollands oudste stad, edited by Pieter Marijnissen, 34–64. Exh. cat. Zwolle: Waanders in association with the Dordrechts Museum, 1992.

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Mahon, Dorothy, Silvia A. Centeno, Margaret Iacono, Federico Carό, Heike Stege and Andrea Obermeier. “Johannes Vermeer’s Mistress and Maid: New Discoveries Cast Light on Changes to the Composition and the Discoloration of Some Paint Passages.” Heritage Science 8, no. 30 (March 27, 2020). Accessed May 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-020-00375-2.

Martin, Wilhelm. Gerard Dou. Translated by Clara Bell. London: G. Bell and Sons, 1902.

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———. Artists and Artisans in Delft: A Socio-Economic Study of the Seventeenth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982.

———. “Recent Archival Research on Vermeer.” In Gaskell and Jonker, Vermeer Studies, 93–109.

———. Vermeer and His Milieu: A Web of Social History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989.

———. “Works of Art in Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam.” In Art in History/History in Art: Studies in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Culture, edited by David Freedberg and Jan de Vries, 331–72. Santa Monica: Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1991.

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Prak, Maarten. “Guilds and the Development of the Art Market during the Dutch Golden Age.” Simiolus 30, nos. 3/4 (2003): 236–51.

———. “Paintings, Journeyman Painters and Painters’ Guilds during the Dutch Golden Age.” In Invisible Hands? The Rise and Status of the Painter’s Journeyman in the Low Countries c. 1450–c. 1650, edited by Natasja Peeters, 133–49. Groningen Studies in Cultural Change 23. Leuven: Peeters, 2007.

Richardson, Clare, and Kate Stonor. “The Conversion of Saint Paul Series at the Courtauld: Rubens’s Artistic Process Revealed by New Technical Discoveries.” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 13, no. 1 (Winter 2021). Accessed May 2, 2022. https://doi.org/10.5092/jhna.2021.13.1.1.

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Schölzel, Christoph. “On the Restoration and Painterly Technique of Girl Reading a Letter at Open Window by Johannes Vermeer.” In Stephan Koja, Uta Neidhardt, and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., eds., Vermeer: On Reflection, 195–219. Exh. cat. Dresden: Sandstein in association with Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, 2021.

Scholten, Frits. “The Larson Family of Statuary Founders: Seventeenth-Century Reproductive Sculpture for Gardens and Painters’ Studios.” Simiolus 31, nos. 1/2 (2004–5): 54–89.

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Sivel, Valerie, Joris Dik, Paul Alkemade, Libby Sheldon, and Henny Zandbergen. “The Cloak of Young Woman Seated at a Virginal: Vermeer, or a Later Hand?” ArtMatters: Netherlands Technical Studies in Art 4 (2007): 90–96.

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Sluijter, Eric Jan. “Emulative Imitation among High-Life Genre Painters.” In Waiboer, Wheelock, and Ducos, Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting, 36–49.

———. Rembrandt and the Nude. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006.

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Vandivere, Abbie, ed., “The Girl in the Spotlight: A Technical Re-Examination of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring.” Special Collection, Heritage Science 7–8 (2019–20). Accessed May 2, 2022. https://www.springeropen.com/collections/gits.

Vandivere, Abbie. “The Technical (Re-)Examination of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring.” Heritage Science 8, no. 26 (March 11, 2020). Accessed May 2, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-020-00370-7.

Vandivere, Abbie, Annelies van Loon, Tom Callewaert, Ralph Haswell, Art Ness Proaño Gaibor, Henk van Keulen, Emilien Leonhardt, and Joris Dik. “Fading into the Background: The Dark Space surrounding Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring.” Heritage Science 7, no. 69 (September 16, 2019). Accessed May 2, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-019-0311-9.

Vandivere, Abbie, Annelies van Loon, Kathryn A. Dooley, Ralph Haswell, Robert G. Erdmann, Emilien Leonhardt, and John K. Delaney. “Revealing the Painterly Technique beneath the Surface of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring Using Macro- and Microscale Imaging.” Heritage Science 7, no. 64 (September 2, 2019). Accessed May 2, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-019-0308-4.

Vandivere, Abbie, Jørgen Wadum, Klaas Jan van den Berg, and Annelies van Loon. “From ‘Vermeer Illuminated’ to ‘The Girl in the Spotlight’: Approaches and Methodologies for the Scientific (Re-)Examination of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring.” Heritage Science 7, no. 66 (August 29, 2019). Accessed May 2, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-019-0307-5.

Vandivere, Abbie, Jørgen Wadum, and Emiliene Leonhardt. “The Girl in the Spotlight: Vermeer at Work, His Materials and Techniques in Girl with a Pearl Earring.” Heritage Science 8, no. 20 (March 2, 2020). Accessed May 2, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-020-0359-6.

Van de Velde, Carl. Frans Floris (1519/20–1570): Leven en werken (monograph). Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, Klasse der Schone Kunsten 37, no. 30. Brussels: Palais der Academiën, 1975.

Verslype, Ige. “The Restoration of ‘Woman in Blue Reading a Letter’ by Johannes Vermeer.” The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 60, no. 1 (2012): 2–19.

Vries, Lyckle de. “Tronies and other Single Figured Netherlandish Paintings.” Leids Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 8 (1990): 185–202.

Wadum, Jørgen. “Contours of Vermeer.” In Gaskell and Jonker, Vermeer Studies, 210–23.

———. “Historical Overview of Panel-Making Techniques in the Northern Countries.” In The Structural Conservation of Panel Paintings, proceedings of a symposium at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 1995, edited by Kathleen Dardes and Andrea Rothe, 149–77. Los Angeles: Getty Conservation Institute, 1998.

Wadum, Jørgen, René Hoppenbrouwers, and Luuk Struick van der Loeff. Vermeer Illuminated: Conservation, Restoration and Research: A Report on the Restoration of the View of Delft and the Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer. Wormer: V+K in association with the Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis, The Hague, 1994.

Wagner, Jens, and Heike Stege. “The Examination of Selected Panels by Jacobus Vrel using Imaging Methods.” In Berndt Ebert, Cécile Tainturier, and Quentin Buvelot, Jacobus Vrel: Searching for Clues to an Enigmatic Artist, 136–48. Exh. cat. Munich: Hirmer, 2021.

Waiboer, Adriaan E. “Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting.” In Waiboer, Wheelock, and Ducos, Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting, 65–84.

———. “Vermeer’s Impact on His Contemporaries.” Oud Holland 123, no. 1 (2010): 51–64.

Waiboer, Adriaan E., and Marit Slob. “Tables 1–6.” In Waiboer, Wheelock, and Ducos, Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting, 258–69.

Waiboer, Adriaan E., Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., and Blaise Ducos. Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry. Exh. cat. New Haven: Yale University Press in association with the National Gallery of Ireland, 2017.

Wald, Robert. “The Art of Painting: Observations on Approach and Technique.” In Sabine Haag, Elke Oberthaler, and Sabine Pénot, Vermeer, Die Malkunst: Spurensicherung an einem Meisterwerk, 312–27. Exh. cat. St. Pölten: Residenz in association with Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 2010.

Wallert, Arie. “The Materials and Methods of Michiel Sweerts’s Paintings.” In Jansen and Sutton, Michiel Sweerts, 37–47.

Wetering, Ernst van de. “Painting Materials and Working Methods.” In Josua Bruyn, Bob Haak, Simon H. Levie, Pieter J. J. van Thiel, and Ernst van de Wetering, A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings. Vol. 1, 1625–1631, 11–33. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982.

———. “‘Principaelen’ and Satellites.” In Lene Bøgh Rønberg and Eva de la Fuente Pedersen, Rembrandt?: The Master and His Workshop, 106–22. Exh. cat. Copenhagen: Statens Museum for Kunst, 2006.

———. “Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits: Problems of Authenticity and Function.” In Ernst van de Wetering, with contributions by Karin Groen, Peter Klein, Jaap van der Veen, and Marieke de Winkel, and with the collaboration of Paul Broekhoff, Michiel Franken, and Liedeke Peese Binkhorst, A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings. Vol. 4, The Self-Portraits, 87–317. Dordrecht: Springer, 2005.

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List of Illustrations

Johannes Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, ca. 1669, oil on panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington
Fig. 1 Johannes Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, ca. 1669, oil on panel, 22.8 x 18 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, inv. 1937.1.53 (artwork in the public domain) [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Johannes Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance, ca. 1664, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington
Fig. 2 Johannes Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance, ca. 1664, oil on canvas, 39.7 x 35.5 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Widener Collection, inv. 1942.9.97 (not shown to scale with fig. 3). (artwork in the public domain) [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Johannes Vermeer, A Lady Writing, ca. 1665, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington
Fig. 3 Johannes Vermeer, A Lady Writing, ca. 1665, oil on canvas, 45 x 39.9 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Gift of Harry Waldron Havemeyer and Horace Havemeyer Jr., in memory of their father, Horace Havemeyer, inv. 1962.10.1 (not shown to scale with fig. 2). (artwork in the public domain) [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 4 Graphic rendering of tronies by or associated with Vermeer shown in relative scale. [side-by-side viewer]
Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait, ca. 1628, oil on panel, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Fig. 5 Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait, ca. 1628, oil on panel, 22.6 cm x 18.7 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. SK-A-4691 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 6 Rembrandt, Self-Portrait (fig. 5), detail [side-by-side viewer]
Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring, ca. 1665, oil on canvas, Mauritshuis, The Hague,
Fig. 7 Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring, ca. 1665, oil on canvas, 44.5 x 39 cm. Mauritshuis, The Hague, inv. 670 (not shown to scale with fig. 8) (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Johannes Vermeer, Study of a Young Woman, ca. 1665−67, oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Fig. 8 Johannes Vermeer, Study of a Young Woman, ca. 1665−67, oil on canvas, 44.5 x 40 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, in memory of Theodore Rousseau Jr., inv. 1979.396.1 (not shown to scale with fig. 7) (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Johannes Vermeer, A Maid Asleep, ca. 1656–57, oil on canvas, 87.6 x 76.5 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Fig. 9 Johannes Vermeer, A Maid Asleep, ca. 1656–57, oil on canvas, 87.6 x 76.5 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913, inv. 14.40.611 (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 10 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, detail of the XRF mercury map (histogram stretched and gamma adjusted to show low amounts of mercury) (photo: Dooley et al., “Documenting the Painting Techniques,” https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/) (see fig. 28) [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 11 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, detail of the face in the false-color IRR (red channel=2100−2400 nm, green channel=1500−1800 nm, blue channel=1100−1400 nm). The white arrow indicates black-containing shadows in the man’s face (photo: Dooley et al., “Documenting the Painting Techniques,” https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/). (see fig. 24) [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 12 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, photomicrograph (see fig. 26) [side-by-side viewer]
Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, false-color IRR, rotated 180 degrees
Fig. 13 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, false-color IRR (as in fig. 11), rotated 180 degrees, revealing the composition of a man below [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, detail of the XRF manganese map, rotated 180 degrees
Fig. 14 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, XRF manganese map, rotated 180 degrees, revealing the use of an umber-based painted sketch that lays out the man’s composition (photo: Dooley et al., “Documenting the Painting  Techniques,”  https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/) [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, XRF lead map, rotated 180 degrees
Fig. 15 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, detail of the XRF lead map, rotated 180 degrees, revealing a lead white rich underpaint in the face and collar of the man, from Dooley et al., “Documenting the Painting Techniques.“ [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 16 Vermeer, A Lady Writing, detail of the false-color IRR (as in fig. 11) [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 17 Vermeer, A Lady Writing, detail of the false-color IRR (as in fig. 11) [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 18 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, detail of the false-color IRR (as in fig. 11), rotated 180 degrees. The white arrow indicates black-containing shadows in the man’s face. [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Vermeer, Girl with Red Hat, x-radiograph, rotated 180 degrees
Fig. 19 Vermeer, Girl with Red Hat, x-radiograph rotated 180 degrees [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 20 Johannes Vermeer, The Procuress, 1656, oil on canvas, 143 x 130 cm, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, inv. 1335, x-radiograph detail of man’s face (Vermeer’s self portrait?), shown approximately to scale with fig. 19. © Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. Photo: Gerhard Rüger [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 21 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, detail of the XRF copper map, rotated 180 degrees, revealing the use of copper in the underpaint (photo: Dooley et al., “Comparing Vermeer's Painting Techniques,” https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/) [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 22 Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance, detail of the XRF copper map, showing the texture of brushstrokes in the copper-rich underpaint layer of the tablecloth (photo: Dooley et al., "Comparing Vermeer's Painting Techniques,” https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/) [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 23 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat (fig. 1), detail of the eyes [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 24 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, detail of the false-color IRR (as in fig. 11) (photo: Dooley et al., “Documenting the Painting Techniques,” https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/). The white arrows indicate an earlier placement of the eyes. [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 25 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat (fig. 1), detail. The white rectangle indicates the location of fig. 26. [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 26 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, photomicrograph. The white arrow indicates darker paint strokes of resketching visible under the final paint of the cloak. [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 27 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat (fig. 1), detail of the hat [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 28 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, detail of the XRF mercury map (as in fig. 10) (photo: Dooley et al., “Documenting the Painting Techniques,” https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/). The white arrows indicate brushstrokes of underpaint blocking out the hat. [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 29 Vermeer, A Lady Writing (fig. 3), detail of the lion’s-head finial. The white rectangle indicates the location of fig. 31 [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 30 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat (fig. 1), detail of the cloak. The white rectangle indicates the location of fig. 32. [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 31 Vermeer, A Lady Writing, photomicrograph of the finial with white arrows that indicate the painted sketch, visible through openings in the final paint [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 32 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, photomicrograph of the cloak with white arrows that indicate the painted sketch of the unfinished painting below, visible through openings in the final paint [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 33 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, photomicrograph of the face. The white arrows indicate textured underpaint (corresponding to the face of the man below) visible through thinly applied surface paint. [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 34 Vermeer, A Lady Writing (fig. 3), detail of the chin with the white arrow indicating a diagonal stroke of brushmarked underpaint [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 35 Vermeer, A Lady Writing (fig. 3), detail of sleeve [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 36 Vermeer, Study of a Young Woman (fig. 8), detail of sleeve at half the scale of fig. 35 [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 37 Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring (fig. 7), detail of sleeve at half the scale of fig. 35 [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 38 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat (fig. 1), detail of highlights on shoulder [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 39 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat (fig. 1), detail of highlights on hat [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 40 Vermeer, A Lady Writing (fig. 3), detail of highlights on the finial [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 41 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat (fig. 1), detail of highlights on the finial [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 42 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat (fig. 1), detail showing lines and stipples of yellow highlights (based on lead- tin yellow) in the final paint of the cloak [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 43 Vermeer, A Lady Writing, detail of the XRF tin map, showing the stippled yellow highlights (based on lead-tin yellow) in the underpaint of the tablecloth (photo: Dooley et al., “Comparing Vermeer's Painting Techniques,” https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/) [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 44 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat (fig. 1), detail of the white kerchief. Troughs in the final paint, created by wiping away wet paint, create the effect of translucent details in fabric. [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 45 Vermeer, A Lady Writing, detail of the XRF iron map (photo: Dooley et al., “Comparing Vermeer's Painting Techniques,” https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/). Troughs in the underpaint, created by wiping away wet paint, suggested folds in the fabric. [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 46 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat (fig. 1), detail of the face [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Michiel Sweerts, A Young Maidservant, ca. 1660, oil on canvas, The Kremer Collection
Fig. 47 Michiel Sweerts, A Young Maidservant, ca. 1660, oil on canvas, 61 x 53.5 cm. The Kremer Collection (not shown to scale with fig. 48) [side-by-side viewer]
Michiel Sweerts, Boy in a Turban Holding a Nosegay, ca. 1658–1661, oil on canvas, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Fig. 48 Michiel Sweerts, Boy in a Turban Holding a Nosegay, ca. 1658–1661, oil on canvas. 76.4 x 61.8 cm. © Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, inv. 385 (1981.19) (not shown to scale with fig. 47) [side-by-side viewer]
Johannes Vermeer, The Lacemaker, ca. 1669−1670, oil on canvas (attached to panel), Musée du Louvre, Paris
Fig. 49 Johannes Vermeer, The Lacemaker, ca. 1669−1670, oil on canvas (attached to panel), 23.9 x 20.5 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. M.I. 1448. (not shown to scale with fig. 50). Musée du Louvre, Paris / Art Resource, NY (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Johannes Vermeer, Young Woman Seated at a Virginal, ca. 1670−72, oil on canvas, Leiden Collection, New York
Fig. 50 Johannes Vermeer, Young Woman Seated at a Virginal, ca. 1670−72, oil on canvas, painted surface measures 24.7 x 19.4 cm (the tacking margins have been removed). Leiden Collection, New York, inv. JVe-100 (not shown to scale with fig. 49). Image courtesy of the Leiden Collection, New York (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Johannes Vermeer, Mistress and Maid, ca. 1666−1667, oil on canvas, Frick Collection, New York
Fig. 51 Johannes Vermeer, Mistress and Maid, ca. 1666−1667, oil on canvas, 90.2 x 78.7 cm. Frick Collection, New York, Henry Clay Frick Bequest, inv. 1919.1.126. © The Frick Collection (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Vermeer, Mistress and Maid, XRF iron map, Frick Collection, New York
Fig. 52 Vermeer, Mistress and Maid, XRF iron map, revealing the original tapestry background. See section titled “Macro-XRF,” fig. 3, in Dorothy Mahon, Silvia A. Centeno, Margaret Iacono, Federico Carό, Heike Stege and Andrea Obermeier, “Johannes Vermeer’s Mistress and Maid: New Discoveries Cast Light on Changes to the Composition and the Discoloration of Some Paint Passages,” Heritage Science 8, no. 30 (March 27, 2020), accessed May 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-020-00375-2; licensed under CC BY 4.0. [side-by-side viewer]
Johannes Vermeer, Woman Writing a Letter, with her Maid, ca. 1670, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin
Fig. 53 Johannes Vermeer, Woman Writing a Letter, with her Maid, ca. 1670, oil on canvas, 71.1 x 60.5 cm. National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, Presented, Sir Alfred and Lady Beit, 1987 (Beit Collection), inv. NGI.4537. Photo © National Gallery of Ireland (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 54 Vermeer, The Lacemaker (fig. 49), detail of the head and shoulder [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 55 Vermeer, Woman Writing a Letter, with her Maid (fig. 53), detail of the head and shoulder [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 56 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat (fig. 1), detail of the head and shoulder [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 57 Vermeer, A Lady Writing (fig. 3), detail of the head and shoulder [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 58 Vermeer, The Lacemaker (fig. 49), close detail of the threads [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 59 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat (fig. 1), close detail of the face and hat [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Johannes Vermeer, The Astronomer, 1668, oil on canvas, Musée du Louvre, Paris
Fig. 60 Johannes Vermeer, The Astronomer, 1668, oil on canvas, 51 x 45 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. RF 1983 28 (shown approximately to scale with fig. 61). Musée du Louvre, Paris / Art Resource, NY (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Johannes Vermeer, The Geographer, 1669, oil on canvas, Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main
Fig. 61 Johannes Vermeer, The Geographer, 1669, oil on canvas, 51.6 x 45.4 cm. Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, inv. 1149 (shown approximately to scale with fig. 60) (artwork in the public domain) [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 62 Vermeer, The Astronomer (fig. 60), detail of face [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 63 Vermeer, The Geographer (fig. 61), detail of face [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 64 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, photomicrograph of the final highlight on the face [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Fig. 65 Vermeer, The Geographer, photomicrograph of the final highlight on the face [side-by-side viewer]
Fig. 66 Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, fig. 1 (not shown to scale with fig. 67) [IIIF multi-mode viewer]
Studio of Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Flute, ca. 1669/1675, oil on panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington
Fig. 67 Studio of Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Flute, ca. 1669/1675, oil on panel, 20 x 17.8 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Widener Collection, inv. 1942.9.98 (not shown to scale with fig. 66) (artwork in the public domain) [IIIF multi-mode viewer]

Footnotes

  1. 1. John Michael Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu: A Web of Social History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 363–64, doc. 439 (dated May 16, 1696), nos. 38–40.

  2. 2. Marjorie E. Wieseman, Alexandra Libby, E. Melanie Gifford, and Dina Anchin, “Vermeer’s Studio and Girl with a Flute: New Findings from the National Gallery of Art,” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 14, no. 2 (Summer 2022), DOI:10.5092/jhna.2022.14.2.3.

  3. 3. Dagmar Hirschfelder, Tronie und Porträt in der niederländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts (Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 2008); see also Lyckle de Vries, “Tronies and Other Single Figured Netherlandish Paintings,” Leids Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 8 (1990): 185–202; Dagmar Hirschfelder, “Training Piece and Sales Product: On the Functions of the Tronie in Rembrandt’s Workshop,” in Rembrandt 2006, vol. 1: Essays, ed. by Michiel Roscam Abbing, 112–33 (Leiden: Foleor, 2006); Franziska Gottwald, Das Tronie—Muster, Studie und Meisterwerk: die Genese einer Gattung der Malerei vom 15. Jahrhundert bis zu Rembrandt (München: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2011); Dagmar Hirschfelder and León Krempel, eds. Tronies: Das Gesicht in der Frühen Neuzeit (Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 2014). A forthcoming exhibition (working title: Tronies: Faces in Northern Art {1500–1700}), curated by Nico Van Hout and Koen Bulckens for the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp (October 20, 2023–January 21, 2024) and the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin (February 24 –May 26, 2024), will examine tronies in relation to the enduring fascination with the human face. We are grateful to the curators for sharing their ongoing research into tronies in northern Europe.

  4. 4. Head studies were particularly important to the Antwerp artist Frans Floris between 1553 and about 1565, as preparatory works for his larger compositions (we are grateful to Jørgen Wadum for this observation). See Carl van de Velde, Frans Floris (1519/20–1570): Leven en werken (monograph), Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, Klasse der Schone Kunsten 37, no. 30 (Brussels: Palais der Academiën, 1975). On the emerging popularity of tronies in the seventeenth century, see Hirschfelder, Tronie, 203.

  5. 5. Christopher D. M. Atkins, The Signature Style of Frans Hals: Painting, Subjectivity, and the Market in Early Modernity (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012), 301.

  6. 6. Elizabeth de Bièvre, Dutch Art and Urban Culture 1200–1700 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 230, citing Karel van Mander, Het Schilder-Boeck (Haarlem, 1604), fol. 281r.

  7. 7. On Larson, see Frits Scholten, “The Larson Family of Statuary Founders: Seventeenth-Century Reproductive Sculpture for Gardens and Painters’ Studios,” Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 31, nos. 1/2 (2004­–5): 54–89.

  8. 8. See Abraham Bredius, Künstler Inventare: Urkunden zur Geschichte der holländischen Kunst des XVIten, XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts, vol. 1 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1915), 325, 328 (Inventory of Jean Larson); Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu, 182, 266, 318–19.

  9. 9. Listed in the inventory compiled February 29, 1676, of moveable goods from the estate of Johannes Vermeer inherited by his widow, Catharina Bolnes: “Inde groote zael (“great hall”) . . . Twee schilderyen Tronyen van Fabritius; . . . Inde binnekeucken . . . Twee trony schilderyen gedaen by [Samuel van] Hoogstraten . . . Twee tronyen geschildert op sijn Turx; . . . Boven op de agtercamer . . . een trony schilderytie.” In addition, the inventory lists “6 paneelen / tien schilderdoucken” in the voorkamer. Transcription based on A. J. J. M. van Peer, “Drie collecties schilderijen van Jan Vermeer,” Oud Holland 72 (1957): 98–103; see also Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu, 339–44.

    Vermeer could have acquired the tronies by Fabritius and Hoogstraten from the artists directly—Fabritius, of course, was a close colleague in Delft. As for Samuel van Hoogstraten, Vermeer traveled to the nearby capital of Amsterdam on at least two occasions (and possibly more) and would have become familiar with artists there and the work that they produced (on Vermeer in Amsterdam, see Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu, 209, 211–12).

  10. 10. John Oliver Hand, National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection (New York: Abrams, in association with the National Gallery of Art, 2004).

  11. 11. The deliberate choice to include a figured tapestry in the background of this painting (as well as its imitator, Girl with a Flute) is a striking departure from the routinely blank backdrops of virtually every other tronie produced in northern Europe during the period. The textiles in both paintings generically resemble late sixteenth-century tapestries from the Southern Netherlands, but the forms are too vaguely rendered to permit closer identification (A. M. Louise E. Muler-Erkelens, keeper of textiles, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, to A. B. de Vries, May 7, 1974, National Gallery curatorial files). Vermeer included tapestries as hangings or table coverings in his works not only for their ability to confer a sense of grandeur and luxury, but out of an aesthetic appreciation of their colors and textures, with his livelier painted recreations of such textiles “flaunting their tactility,” as de Bièvre notes (Dutch Art and Urban Culture, 190).

  12. 12. Walter A. Liedtke, Vermeer: The Complete Paintings (Ghent: Ludion, 2008), 136. Caffa was an expensive silk velvet fabric, with patterned pile designs on a satin ground.

  13. 13. Other paintings of women wearing soft, velvet berets (with or without feathers) have been cited as possible prototypes for the hat in Vermeer’s painting. Otto Naumann, in Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk: Davaco, 1981), 2:28, suggested that Frans van Mieris’s diminutive Portrait of a Woman, dated 1658 (Städel Museum, Frankfurt) may have inspired Girl with the Red Hat, which similarly features an “unusual hat that penetrates the picture plane”; and Walter Liedtke (Complete Paintings, 136) noted that the hat in Vermeer’s painting “is very similar in size and shape to the red velvet hat in Rembrandt’s portrait of his wife Saskia in fancy dress, of about 1634–42” (Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Kassel). While both these examples are recognizable as the sort of soft velvet bonnets fashionable a century earlier and popular as fancy-dress accessories among seventeenth-century artists, the ambiguous, feathery texture and stiff form of the hat in Vermeer’s painting seem entirely his own creation.

  14. 14. In a past conservation treatment, the reverse of the panel was planed down and cradled and the panel inset within a wooden collar that covers all the original edges. Because of this structure, it has not been possible to carry out wood analysis of the support; however, the panel is visually typical of oak. Because the collar covers the end grain, it has also not been possible to carry out dendrochronology; however, new methods using specialized CT scanning may soon overcome this obstacle.

  15. 15. For a fuller discussion of this painting’s attribution history, see Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Johannes Vermeer/Girl with the Red Hat/c. 1665/1666,” in Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century, NGA Online Editions (April 24, 2014), accessed July 16, 2021, https://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/60. The attribution of Girl with the Red Hat to Vermeer was questioned by Frithjof van Thienen in Jan Vermeer of Delft (New York: Harper, 1949), 23, and rejected by several authors, including P. T. A. Swillens, in Johannes Vermeer: Painter of Delft, 1632–1675 (Utrecht: Spectrum, 1950), 65; Albert Blankert, Rob Ruurs, and Willem L. van de Watering, in Johannes Vermeer van Delft 1632–1675 (Utrecht: Het Spectrum, 1975; English ed., Oxford: Phaidon, 1978), 167–72; Yvonne Brentjens, in “Twee meisjes van Vermeer in Washington,” Tableau 7 (February 1985): 54–58; and Gilles Aillaud, Albert Blankert, and John Michael Montias, in Vermeer (Paris: Hazan, 1986), 200–1. For reactions to Blankert’s rejection of this painting, see the reviews by Christopher Brown, in Simiolus 9 (1977): 56–58; and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., in Art Bulletin 59 (September 1977): 439–41. Benjamin Binstock has attributed Girl with the Red Hat to Vermeer’s daughter Maria Vermeer; see Benjamin Binstock, Vermeer’s Family Secrets: Genius, Discovery, and the Unknown Apprentice (New York: Routledge, 2009), 247–57.

  16. 16. Léon Krempel proposed an interpretation of Girl with the Red Hat and Girl with a Flute as iconographic pendants illustrating Ecclesia and Synagoga; see Léon Krempel, “Allegorische Tronie-Paare bei Johannes Vermeer,” in Tronies: Das Gesicht in der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. Dagmar Hirschfelder and León Krempel (Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 2014), 99–107.

  17. 17.  The orientation of the chair has long puzzled art historians. Albert Blankert, Rob Ruurs, and Willem L. van de Watering (Vermeer, 109), believing that the chair belongs to the woman, insisted that the position of the finials is wrong and that they ought to face the sitter. To them, this seeming error undermined an attribution to Vermeer, whom they felt would never make such a mistake. Wheelock also noted the apparent irregularity but argued that it was in service of Vermeer’s broader artistic vision to create an integrated composition (Wheelock, “Girl with the Red Hat”).

  18. 18. Vermeer’s practice in the preparatory stages is described in detail in E. Melanie Gifford, Dina Anchin, Alexandra Libby, Marjorie E. Wieseman, Kathryn A. Dooley, Lisha Deming Glinsman, and John K. Delaney, “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process: New Findings from the National Gallery of Art,” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 14, no. 2 (Summer 2022), DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2022.14.2.1. Although an earlier study by E. Melanie Gifford—“Painting Light: Recent Observations on Vermeer’s Technique,” in Ivan Gaskell and Michiel Jonker, eds., Vermeer Studies, Studies in the History of Art 55 (New Haven: Yale University Press in association with the National Gallery of Art, 1998), 185–99—concluded, based on magnified surface examination and a limited number of paint samples, that Vermeer sometimes omitted steps in the process described here, the present study has found new evidence that each of the stages described here appear in all four paintings at the National Gallery. See Gifford et al, “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process,” for a detailed description of Vermeer’s painting practices and our terminology (via this link). We have deliberately avoided the term “dead color” (doodwerf in Dutch) since both modern and historical writers have used it in more than one context: some referring to the monochromatic painted sketch but others to the colored underpaint stage that often followed it.

  19. 19. Gifford et al, “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process,” figs. 24–27 (via this link); Kathryn A. Dooley, E. Melanie Gifford, Dina Anchin, Lisha Deming Glinsman, Marjorie E. Wieseman, Alexandra Libby, and John K. Delaney, “Documenting the Painting Techniques in Girl with the Red Hat and Girl with a Flute Using Chemical Imaging Spectroscopy,” Heritage Science (forthcoming-https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/).

  20. 20. Gifford et al, “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process” (via this link); Dooley et al., “Documenting the Painting Techniques.”

  21. 21. Gifford et al, “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process” (via this link); Dooley et al., “Documenting the Painting Techniques.”

  22. 22. See Gifford et al, “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process,” figs. 47, 48 (via this link).

  23. 23. The standard presentation of XRF maps is a grayscale image in which whiter or brighter areas signify a stronger signal for the element specified, and darker areas signify a low signal. In this inverted map, however, the darkest areas correspond to the highest concentration of copper, indicating areas with more copper drier, often incorporated into black paints.

  24. 24. For technical studies focused on Vermeer’s tronies, see Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Zur Technik zweier Bilder, die Vermeer zugeschrieben sind,” Maltechnik–Restauro 84 (1978): 242–57; Karin Groen et al., “Scientific Examination of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring,” in Gaskell and Jonker, Vermeer Studies, 169–83; and Gifford, “Painting Light.” Most recently, extensive research on the materials and techniques of Girl with a Pearl Earring was published in a suite of articles, including John K. Delaney et al., “Mapping the Pigment Distribution of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring,” Heritage Science 8, no. 4 (January 7, 2020), accessed May 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-019-0348-9; Annelies van Loon et al., “Out of the Blue: Vermeer’s Use of Ultramarine in Girl with a Pearl Earring,” Heritage Science 8, no. 25 (February 28, 2020), accessed May 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-020-00364-5; Annalies van Loon et al., “Beauty is Skin Deep: The Skin Tones of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring,” Heritage Science 7, no. 102 (December 11, 2019), accessed May 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-019-0344-0; Abbie Vandivere, “The Technical (Re-)Examination of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring,” Heritage Science 8, no. 26 (March 11, 2020), accessed May 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-020-00370-7; Abbie Vandivere et al., “Fading into the Background: The Dark Space surrounding Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring,” Heritage Science 7, no. 69 (September 16, 2019), accessed May 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-019-0311-9; Abbie Vandivere et al., “Revealing the Painterly Technique beneath the Surface of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring Using Macro- and Microscale Imaging,” Heritage Science 7, no. 64 (September 2, 2019), accessed May 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-019-0308-4; Abbie Vandivere et al., “From ‘Vermeer Illuminated’ to ‘The Girl in the Spotlight’: Approaches and Methodologies for the Scientific (Re-)Examination of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring,” Heritage Science 7, no. 66 (August 29, 2019), accessed May 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-019-0307-5; Abbie Vandivere, Jørgen Wadum, and Emiliene Leonhardt, “The Girl in the Spotlight: Vermeer at Work, His Materials and Techniques in Girl with a Pearl Earring,” Heritage Science 8, no. 20 (March 2, 2020), accessed May 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-020-0359-6.

  25. 25. Weave maps show a canvas match between Study of a Young Woman and Woman in Blue Reading a Letter (ca. 1663; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam): “Appendix 2: Matches,” Match 8, in C. Richard Johnson Jr. and William A. Sethares, eds., Counting Vermeer: Using Weave Maps to Study Vermeer’s Canvases, RKD Studies (The Hague: RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History, 2017), accessed April 18, 2022, http://countingvermeer.rkdstudies.nl/appendix-ii-matches.

  26. 26. See note 9.

  27. 27. In fact, it seems more unusual that Vermeer used canvas for his two other paintings on a similarly small scale, The Lacemaker (23.9 x 20.5 cm; Musée du Louvre, Paris) and Young Woman Seated at a Virginal (24.7 x 19.3 cm; The Leiden Collection, New York). Our thanks to Adriaan Waiboer for this observation.

  28. 28. The underlying composition of a man was known from earlier technical images (X-radiography and infrared reflectography; see Wheelock, “Girl with the Red Hat”); however, new imaging for the present study has allowed us to distinguish between the two images more precisely than was previously possible. Vermeer seems not to have been distracted by working over an underlying image; a recent study of Vermeer’s Mistress and Maid (The Frick Collection, New York) found that he painted over an intricately patterned tapestry without covering the tapestry or scraping it away. Brushstrokes of the tapestry are visible in XRF maps and in three cross-sections taken from that area; the underpaint for the tapestry remains below two layers that compose the present background of a sweeping curtain; see Dorothy Mahon et al., “Johannes Vermeer’s Mistress and Maid: New Discoveries Cast Light on Changes to the Composition and the Discoloration of Some Paint Passages,” Heritage Science 8, no. 30 (March 27, 2020), accessed May 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-020-00375-2.

  29. 29. The panel of Girl with the Red Hat was prepared with a chalk lower ground and tan upper ground or primuersel layers (composed of white lead, calcium carbonate, and earth pigments) that are found on ready-made grounded panels used by Vermeer’s contemporaries; see Ernst van de Wetering, “Painting Materials and Working Methods,” in Josua Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 1, 1625–1631 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982), 17­–20. Jørgen Wadum suggested that the primuersel may often have been applied in the individual artist’s studio; see Jørgen Wadum, “Historical Overview of Panel-Making Techniques in the Northern Countries,” in The Structural Conservation of Panel Paintings, proceedings of a symposium at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 1995, ed. Kathleen Dardes and Andrea Rothe (Los Angeles: Getty Conservation Institute, 1998), 168. However, these preparations vary so little that it seems likely many were prepared commercially. For example, research on Vermeer’s contemporary Jan Steen found that the composition of the primuersel on Steen’s panels hardly fluctuated throughout his career; see Maya Albrecht et al., “Discovering Trends in Jan Steen’s Grounds Using Principal Component Analysis,” in Ground Layers in European Painting 1550­–1750, proceedings of Centre for Art Technological Studies and Conservation conference 5 (“Mobility Creates Masters”), June 2019, ed. Anne Haack Christensen, Angela Jager, and Joyce H. Townsend (London: Archetype, 2020), 122–23.

  30. 30. Some artists began their compositions with an underdrawing before the painted sketch. In this case, the IR image shows no evidence of a black-containing drawing. As XRF mapping systems are refined, there are new possibilities for imaging fine lines in white or red chalk below paint layers.

  31. 31. Wheelock compared the paint handling to works such as Fabritius’s Man with a Helmet (ca. 1648–49; Groninger Museum, Groningen). See Wheelock, “Zur Technik zweier Bilder,” 250; Wheelock, “Girl with the Red Hat.”

  32. 32. Martin Bailey, Vermeer (London: Phaidon, 1995), 88.

  33. 33. Walter A. Liedtke, in Walter A. Liedtke et al., Vermeer and the Delft School, exh. cat. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001), 389n8.

  34. 34. Benjamin Binstock, “The Apprenticeship of Maria Vermeer,” Artibus et Historiae 29, no. 57 (2008): 9–47.

  35. 35. Jørgen Wadum, “Contours of Vermeer,” in Gaskell and Jonker, Vermeer Studies, 214.

  36. 36. Dooley et al., “Documenting the Painting Techniques.” [for RIS analysis of underpaint shadows].

  37. 37. Marlies Giebe, “Johannes Vermeers ‘Kupplerin’: Restaurierung und Maltechnische Befunde,” in Johannes Vermeer: Bei Der Kupplerin, ed. Uta Neidhardt and Marlies Giebe, exh. cat. (Dresden: Michel Sandstein in association with Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, 2004), 49, 53.

  38. 38. Rubens, for example, seems to have reused paintings from earlier in his career that he had saved but later saw as expendable; see Clare Richardson and Kate Stonor, “The Conversion of Saint Paul Series at the Courtauld: Rubens’s Artistic Process Revealed by New Technical Discoveries,” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 13, no. 1 (Winter 2021), 7–11, accessed May 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.5092/jhna.2021.13.1.1.

  39. 39. In Girl with a Pearl Earring, Vermeer used a copper drier in the dark green final glaze of the background, an area he painted with slow-drying pigments, but not in the black-containing underpaint of the background; see Vandivere et al., “Fading.”

  40. 40. E. Melanie Gifford and Lisha Deming Glinsman, “Collective Style and Personal Manner: Materials and Techniques of High-Life Genre Painting,” in Adriaan E. Waiboer, Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., and Blaise Ducos, Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting, exh. cat. (New Haven: Yale University Press in association with the National Gallery of Ireland, 2017), 69–70.

  41. 41. Gifford et al, “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process” (via this link).

  42. 42. Research on Girl with a Pearl Earring and Girl with the Red Hat does not offer definitive evidence that might distinguish Vermeer’s brown sketch, if he used one, from the other layers. In Girl with a Pearl Earring, umber appears in the ground, but a single umber-based layer corresponding to the painted sketch was not detected in paint samples (Vandivere et al., “Revealing”), although in the jacket an underlayer that ranges in color from light brown on the lit side to brown-black in the shadow was observed with magnified examination. In Girl with the Red Hat, magnified examination of the surface compared to the false-color IRR image and the XRF map for manganese shows that umber was used in both the unfinished image of a man and in the underpaint of the young woman’s image, but it was not possible to confirm definitively that Vermeer used an independent painted sketch to prepare the final image.

  43. 43. These swirls seem to fill the same function as the small dark dots that first positioned the eyes in Girl with the Pearl Earring (Vandivere et al., “Revealing”).

  44. 44. PLM analysis of sample T1823 found primarily isotropic earth and ultramarine, with CaCO3, umber, black, and traces of lead-tin yellow and red lake.

  45. 45. Gifford et al, “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process” (via this link).

  46. 46. Vandivere et al. concluded it was not possible to establish whether these lines were applied before or after the freely brushed underlayer (Vandivere et al., “Revealing”).

  47. 47. Vandivere et al., “Revealing”; Vandivere et al., “Fading.” Interestingly, Vermeer does not seem to have used copper drier in this underpaint.

  48. 48. We are grateful to colleagues at the department of paintings conservation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for access to the X-radiograph.

  49. 49. This modifies the proposal in an earlier publication that the underlying man’s cloak could have unconsciously inspired the hat’s unusual shape; see E. Melanie Gifford, “Material as Metaphor: Non-Conscious Thinking in Seventeenth Century Painting Practice,” in Studying Old Master Paintings: Technology and Practice, ed. Marika Spring (London: Archetype in association with The National Gallery, 2011), 165–72. Using the new false-color infrared image of Girl with the Red Hat, combined with highly magnified examination of the painting’s surface, we now know that the lines that closely parallel the hat (and appear brownish in the false-color infrared reflectance image) originated in Vermeer’s own underpaint for the tapestry background. However, several other blackish strokes at varied diagonals do correspond to the man’s cloak.

  50. 50. SEM-EDS analysis identified low levels of copper in the final paint; copper found in the underpaint is at twice this level. Gifford et al, “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process” (via this link).

  51. 51. Previously, this painting’s effect has been described more generally as embodying “unusual spontaneity and informality”; see Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., Vermeer & the Art of Painting (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 124.

  52. 52. The lighted finial in Girl with the Red Hat is just 25 percent larger than the one in A Lady Writing, but the white highlights are roughly four times as large.

  53. 53. See Gifford et al, “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process” (via this link). As noted there, it is possible that small amounts of pigments of high atomic weight (such as lead white) in the overlying paint layer can suppress a signal from the layers below (the matrix effect) and so modify the appearance of the underlayer in element maps. In this case, however, the difference between the smooth application pattern of lead white in the final paint (seen in the M-line map for lead) and the brush-marked pattern of lead-tin yellow in the underpaint (seen in the tin map) seems clearly related to a difference in paint handling between the final paint and underpaint.

  54. 54. Gifford et al, “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process” (via this link).

  55. 55. Gifford et al, “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process” (via this link).

  56. 56. In Girl with the Red Hat, the long strokes for highlights on the cloak and the troughs in the kerchief are both up to two millimeters wide, as are the troughs seen in the XRF map for iron in A Lady Writing.

  57. 57. Vandivere, Wadum, and Leonhardt, “The Girl in the Spotlight.” It is also possible that old damage such as paint abrasion has blurred contrasts that were originally more pronounced.

  58. 58. Gifford et al, “First Steps in Vermeer’s Creative Process” (via this link); Dooley et al., “Documenting the Painting Techniques.”

  59. 59. Pigments throughout the flesh tones in the paintings included in this discussion were identified using a combination of techniques, including polarized light microscopy, fiber optic reflectance spectroscopy, and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy.

  60. 60. Gifford and Glinsman found evidence of green earth in most of the paintings by Vermeer included in that study (in later works, this pigment appears in the shadows of flesh tones as well as interior features such as fabrics) but in only two paintings by other high-life genre artists (Gifford and Glinsman, “Collective Style and Personal Manner,” 82). Gifford and Glinsman’s examinations found that Nicholas Maes used green earth in a curtain but not in flesh tones in The Listening Housewife (1656; Wallace Collection, London) and that Pieter de Hooch used green earth as an inexpensive replacement for ultramarine in the shadows of white satin late in his career (The Greeting, ca. 1675; National Gallery of Art, Washington).

  61. 61. Govaert Flinck (1615–1660) was also representative of this trend. Although Flinck began his career as a pupil of Rembrandt and initially painted tronies of characterful older men and women, from the 1650s his single-figured paintings skewed decidedly toward attractive younger women, deliberately avoiding extreme displays of expression and emotion or unusual physiognomies. See Hirschfelder, Tronie, 242.

  62. 62. See Guido Jansen and Peter C. Sutton, eds., Michiel Sweerts (1618–1664), exh. cat. (Zwolle: Waanders in association with the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; and Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art, Hartford, 2002), 23.

  63. 63. Liedtke, Complete Paintings, 132.

  64. 64. See Arie Wallert, “The Materials and Methods of Michiel Sweerts’s Paintings,” in Jansen and Sutton, Michiel Sweerts, 44–47.

  65. 65. Paintings by Sweerts showing an underpaint layer that is more strongly brushmarked than the final paint include Head of a Woman, ca. 1654, oil on panel, 50.6 x 37.5 cm, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

  66. 66. Hoogstraten seems to have painted tronies for just a limited period in the 1640s, the majority of them self-portraits in elaborate costumes; see Hirschfelder, Tronie, 197; and Celeste Brusati, Artifice and Illusion: The Art and Writing of Samuel van Hoogstraten (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 346–54, 367–68. In 1647, “Een trony van Hoochstraeten,” formerly owned by the painter Abraham van Beijeren, brought 14 guilders, 5 stuivers at the sale of paintings by members of the St. Luke’s Guild in The Hague; see Michiel Roscam Abbing, De schilder en schrijver Samuel van Hoogstraten 1627–1678: Eigentijdse bronnen en oeuvre van gesigneerde schilderijen (Leiden: Primavera Pers, 1993), 89. The presence of tronies by Fabritius in several seventeenth-century inventories suggests that they were a significant part of his output. Seven tronies are among the paintings listed in the 1643 inventory of the effects of Fabritius’s first wife, Aeltge Velthuysen. None are attributed, but at least some of them—including some described as aangesmeerde, or “smeared,” meaning perhaps unfinished, and others kept in the painter’s working rooms—would undoubtedly have been by Fabritius; see Notariël Archief, notaris D. de l’Homel (1628, ff. 377–399), Stadsarchief Amsterdam; published in Abraham Bredius, “Het Schildersregister van Jan Sysmus, Stads Doctor te Amsterdam, II,” Oud-Holland 8 (1890), 226–27; see also Christopher Brown, Carel Fabritius: Complete Edition with a Catalogue Raisonné (Oxford: Phaidon, 1981), 17, 147. Although not universally accepted as a work by Carel Fabritius, Woman with a Pearl Earring (Portrait of a Woman in Profile), dated 1654 (Niedersächsische Landesmuseum, Hannover), has interesting compositional parallels with Vermeer’s tronies: generalized garments, striking headgear, and a prominent pearl earring.

  67. 67. John Michael Montias’s study of Amsterdam inventories determined that between 1620 and 1649, painted tronies comprised 3.3 percent of collections with attributed paintings; between 1650 and 1679, approximately 2.4 percent—a small but significant percentage. See John Michael Montias, “Works of Art in Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam,” in Art in History/History in Art: Studies in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Culture, ed. David Freedberg and Jan de Vries (Santa Monica: Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1991), 350–51, table 2. Figures may have been somewhat lower in other cities; John Loughman estimated that 1.6 percent of paintings in Dordrecht inventories analyzed were tronies; see John Loughman, “Een stad en haar kunstconsumptie: Openbare en privé-verzamelingen in Dordrecht, 1620–1719,” in De Zichtbaere Werelt: Schilderkunst uit de gouden eeuw in Hollands oudste stad, ed. Pieter Marijnissen, exh. cat. (Zwolle: Waanders in association with the Dordrechts Museum, 1992), 47. Montias’s figures for Delft collections do not differentiate between portraits and tronies; see John Michael Montias, Artists and Artisans in Delft: A Socio-Economic Study of the Seventeenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 242, table 8.3. These figures must be regarded as rough estimates only, as it is impossible to assess how (or whether) most seventeenth-century notaries would have distinguished between an unidentified portrait and a tronie.

  68. 68. Their average price was 2.7 guilders in 1597–1619 and 2.3 guilders in 1620–1638; by comparison, genre paintings sold during the latter period for an average of 17.9 guilders. See John Michael Montias, Art at Auction in 17th Century Amsterdam (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2002), 91.

  69. 69. Hirschfelder, Tronie, 233, 235.

  70. 70. Hirschfelder, Tronie, 238.

  71. 71. Tronies seem to have been especially abundant in the collections of artists and dealers. During 1597–1638, in Amsterdam auction sales featuring paintings sold at the request of artists and art dealers, tronies represented 20 percent of all known subjects, a percentage far in excess of their proportion in estate sales; see Montias, Art at Auction, 88. In all other inventories, tronies accounted for 13 percent in 1597–1619 and 2 percent in 1620–1638.

  72. 72. Hirschfelder, Tronie, 238–39, with further references.

  73. 73. In the sale of paintings from the Dissius collection in May 1696, the National Gallery’s Woman Holding a Balance (referred to in the catalogue as “A young lady weighing gold, in a box by J. van der Meer of Delft, extraordinarily artful and vigorously painted”) sold for 155 guilders, and the Rijksmuseum’s Milkmaid (“A maid pouring out milk, extremely well done, by ditto”) sold for 175 guilders; the least expensive genre painting by Vermeer (“A young lady doing needlework, by the same,” likely to be identified with the diminutive Lacemaker) sold for 28 guilders. See Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu, 363–64, doc. 439 (dated May 16, 1696), nos. 1–2, 12). In 1699, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Allegory of Faith (listed as “A seated woman with several meanings representing the New Testament by Vermeer of Delft, vigorously and glowingly painted”) fetched four hundred guilders during the sale of Herman van Swoll’s collection. See Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu, 364, doc. 440 (dated April 11, 1699).

  74. 74. Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu, 363­–64, doc. 439 (dated May 16, 1696), nos. 38–40.

  75. 75. Rather than commissioning specific works, Van Ruijven probably exercised a sort of “right of first refusal,” with Vermeer offering him the option to purchase any painting he produced. John Michael Montias, “Recent Archival Research on Vermeer,” in Gaskell and Jonker, Vermeer Studies, 95. On Vermeer’s finances generally, see Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu, 183–86.

  76. 76. Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu, 344–45, doc. 367 (dated April 24 and 30, 1676).

  77. 77. On van Aelst’s flexible and pragmatic approach to production in his late works, see E. Melanie Gifford et al., “The Making of a Luxury Image: Van Aelst’s Painting Materials and Artistic Techniques,” in Tanya Paul et al., Elegance and Refinement: The Still-Life Paintings of Willem van Aelst, exh. cat. (New York: Skira Rizzoli, 2012), 80–84.

  78. 78. It has not been possible to make direct comparison of ground samples from the two paintings, but analysis of The Lacemaker found a ground consisting of chalk, lead white, and umber; see Herman Kühn, “A Study of the Pigments and the Grounds Used by Jan Vermeer,” Reports and Studies in the History of Art 2 (1968): 158, 195. Analysis of Young Woman Seated at a Virginal reported lead white and chalk toned with red and yellow earths, lamp black, and umber; see Libby Sheldon and Nicola Costaras, “Johannes Vermeer’s ‘Young Woman Seated at a Virginal,’” The Burlington Magazine 148, no. 1235 (2006): 93. Canvas weave analysis has established that the two canvases came from the same bolt; see Walter A. Liedtke, Richard C. Johnson, and Don H. Johnson, “Canvas Matches in Vermeer: A Case Study in the Computer Analysis of Fabric Supports,” Metropolitan Museum Journal 47 (2012): 102–5; and Johnson and Sethares, “Appendix 2: Matches,” Match 1, in Counting Vermeer. The painted surface of Young Woman Seated at a Virginal measures 24.7 x 19.4 cm (the tacking margins have been removed). The canvas of The Lacemaker has been mounted onto a wood panel, but based on evidence of the original tacking margins and strainer bar marks found in X-radiographic examination, the original format must have been 24.5 x 19.3 cm; see Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. et al., Johannes Vermeer, exh. cat. (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art in association with the Mauritshuis, 1995), 176, under “Technical Description.”

  79. 79. Johnson and Sethares, Counting Vermeer, §6.1 (“Weave Matches”).

  80. 80. Vermeer was not alone in using an underlying composition as a site for experimentation. Rubens not only reused supports for entirely different compositions (presumably as an economy; see Richardson and Stonor, “The Conversion of Saint Paul Series,” 7–11), but he also retained his own earlier works for experimentation and inspiration; see E. Melanie Gifford, “Rubens’s Invention and Evolution: Material Evidence in The Fall of Phaeton,” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 11, no. 2 (Summer 2019), accessed May 2, 2022, https://doi.org/10.5092/jhna.2019.11.2.1.

  81. 81. Although it might seem distracting, many artists have painted on reused supports without obscuring the underlying composition by applying a new ground layer. The absence of an intervening layer can be easily recognized during magnified examination of the painting or with the aid of cross-sections. Examples of genre paintings by other artists made on salvaged supports include Jan Steen, Doctor’s Visit (ca. 1665–68, oil on panel, Mauritshuis, The Hague, inv. 168; painted over an uncompleted composition possibly by Steen himself, turned 90 degrees); Jacobus Vrel, Street Scene with a Bakery by the Town Wall (n.d., oil on panel, private collection; painted over what appears to be an architectural view) and Woman at the Hearth (n.d., oil on panel, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. SK-A-1592; painted on a fragment cut from a much earlier painting, probably a portrait). On Steen, see Sabrina Meloni, “A Recycled Panel,” Mauritshuis in Focus 24, no. 2 (2011): 32; for the paintings by Vrel, see Jens Wagner and Heike Stege, “The Examination of Selected Panels by Jacobus Vrel using Imaging Methods,” in Berndt Ebert, Cécile Tainturier, and Quentin Buvelot, Jacobus Vrel: Searching for Clues to an Enigmatic Artist, exh. cat. (Munich: Hirmer, 2021), 145. Our thanks to Jonathan Bikker and Quentin Buvelot for drawing our attention to many of these examples.

  82. 82. Ernst van de Wetering, “Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits: Problems of Authenticity and Function,” in Ernst van de Wetering et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 4, The Self-Portraits (Dordrecht: Springer, 2005), 96. See also, for example, Rembrandt’s Interior with Figures (La main chaud) (ca. 1628, oil on panel, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, NGI.439; painted over a bust-length portrait of a man, turned 90 degrees).

  83. 83. Parenthetically, it might be noted that Delft was the most important (and virtually the only) tapestry-producing center in the Northern Netherlands in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, producing a range of wares for courtly, civic, and private patrons throughout the United Provinces. On the tapestry industry in Delft, see M. I. E. van Zijl, “De Delftse Wandtapijten,” in Ineke V. T. Spaander and Rein-Arend Leeuw, De Stad Delft: Cultuur en maatschappij van 1572 tot 1667, exh. cat. (Delft: Stedelijk Museum Het Prinsenhof, 1981), 202–9.

  84. 84. Vermeer seems to have ventured a less radical textile backdrop to a tronie head in Girl with a Pearl Earring, where recent technical examination has determined that the background of the painting, now an uneven dark tone, may have originally been painted to suggest a curtain or swag of dark green fabric. See Vandivere et al., “Fading.”

  85. 85. On Mistress and Maid, see Mahon et al., “Johannes Vermeer’s Mistress and Maid.”

  86. 86. On Vermeer’s use of green earth in flesh tones in his later works, see Helen Howard, “Vermeer and Technique: Vermeer’s Palette,” in “Research: The Meaning of Making,” The National Gallery (London) website, accessed March 10, 2022, https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/research/about-research/the-meaning-of-making/vermeer-and-technique/vermeers-palette; Sheldon and Costaras, “Johannes Vermeer’s ‘Young Woman Seated at a Virginal,’” 94–5; and Nicola Costaras, “A Study of the Materials and Techniques of Johannes Vermeer,” in Gaskell and Jonker, Vermeer Studies, 159–60.

  87. 87. Wadum, “Contours,” 206­–7.

  88. 88. Tancred Borenius, “The New Vermeer,” Apollo 2 (July–December 1925): 125–26; Wilhelm R. Valentiner, “Zum 300: Geburtstag Jan Vermeers, Oktober 1932: Vermeer und die Meister der Holländischen Genremalerei,” Pantheon 5 (October 1932): 305–24. Lawrence Gowing, in Vermeer (London: Faber and Faber, 1952), 56, included the painting in Vermeer’s “last phase,” alongside Girl with a Flute and Mistress and Maid; André Malraux, in Vermeer de Delft (Paris: Gallimard, 1952), 21–22, 94, 96, 104, no. 27, placed it “after 1670”; and Leonard J. Slatkes, in Vermeer and His Contemporaries (New York: Abbeville Press, 1981), 97, dated it to about 1671–1672. In proposing the painting as an early self-portrait by Vermeer’s eldest daughter, Maria, Binstock (Vermeer’s Family Secrets, 249–57 passim; 293, 298) dates it to 1672.

  89. 89. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr, Jan Vermeer (New York: Abrams, 1981), 130.

  90. 90. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Johannes Vermeer/Girl with the Red Hat,” in Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century: The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue (Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1995), 385.

  91. 91. Gifford examined The Geographer with a stereomicroscope in the conservation department of the Städel Museum, Frankfurt, in 2015 (photomicrographs and examination notes dated August 20, 2015, are on file at the National Gallery, Washington). Comparisons to The Astronomer were made using a digital image available online (https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/the-astronomer-johannes-vermeer/bQELiVC_QJaAlQ?hl=en, accessed February 8, 2022).

  92. 92. C. Richard Johnson Jr., and William A. Sethares, “Canvas Weave Match Supports Designation of Vermeer’s Geographer and Astronomer as a Pendant Pair,” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 9, no. 1 (Winter 2017), accessed May 9, 2022, https://doi.org/10.5092/jhna.2017.9.1.17; Johnson and Sethares, “Appendix 2: Matches,” Match 4, in Counting Vermeer.

  93. 93. Wieseman et al., “Vermeer’s Studio and Girl with a Flute” (via this link).

Bibliography

Note: The bibliography represents all articles in JHNA Issue 14.2 and is repeated in each article.

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DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2022.14.2.2
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Alexandra Libby, E. Melanie Gifford, Dina Anchin, Marjorie E. Wieseman, Kathryn A. Dooley, Lisha Deming Glinsman, John K. Delaney, "Experimentation and Innovation in Vermeer’s Girl with the Red Hat: New Findings from the National Gallery of Art," Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 14:2 (Summer 2022) DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2022.14.2.2