The Concert
painter
Johannes Vermeer
(Delft, 1632 - 1675, Delft)
Date1663-1666
Place MadeNetherlands, Europe
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions72.5 x 64.7 cm (28 9/16 x 25 1/2 in.)
ClassificationsPaintings
Credit LineIsabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Accession numberP21w27
eMuseum ID717993
EmbARK ObjectID10966
TMS Source ID225
Last Updated9/17/24
DescriptionStolen in 1990.Status
Not on viewWeb CommentaryIn a pristine domestic parlor, two women and a man concentrate on making music. The standing woman holds a sheet of music and raises her hand to beat time for her companions. Turned enigmatically away from our gaze, the seated gentleman wears an elaborate decorated sash that indicates his membership in a civic militia. Some scholars have been tempted to interpret Dutch musical scenes like this as moral warnings against seduction and illicit sex. Indeed, hanging on the wall at the right is a painting of a procuress by Dirck van Baburen. Although the subject of this painting-within-a-painting seems to suggest that something improper is taking place, the Procuress was in fact owned by Vermeer’s family. Moreover, the figures in the room are intently preoccupied with their music: they do not look at each other, and seem unaware they are being observed. Their intensity does not invite interruption. Lying on the large table at left is a lute, while a viola da gamba lies on the floor. Are these instruments soon to be taken up by the trio, or are others to join the group? Vermeer crafts rather deliberately a sense of mystery: this study in social interaction is a comedy of manners open to our interpretation.
The mystery is intensified by Vermeer’s famed attention to the reflections of light. It sparkles off the women’s pearls (Mrs. Gardner’s favorite), the gold threads of the man’s sash, the white silk skirt, and even the Persian carpet heaped on the table.
Isabella Stewart Gardner may have been drawn to the painting by its elegant depiction of the domestic music-making that she herself was so fond of. The painting was her first major acquisition, and she bought it without the help of experts. It was bought at the Paris auction of the estate of Théophile Thoré (1807–1869), a prominent critic who wrote under the pseudonym William Bürger. He had been instrumental in reviving the reputation of Vermeer, which made this painting especially important.
Source: Alan Chong, "The Concert," in Eye of the Beholder, edited by Alan Chong et al. (Boston: ISGM and Beacon Press, 2003): 149.
The mystery is intensified by Vermeer’s famed attention to the reflections of light. It sparkles off the women’s pearls (Mrs. Gardner’s favorite), the gold threads of the man’s sash, the white silk skirt, and even the Persian carpet heaped on the table.
Isabella Stewart Gardner may have been drawn to the painting by its elegant depiction of the domestic music-making that she herself was so fond of. The painting was her first major acquisition, and she bought it without the help of experts. It was bought at the Paris auction of the estate of Théophile Thoré (1807–1869), a prominent critic who wrote under the pseudonym William Bürger. He had been instrumental in reviving the reputation of Vermeer, which made this painting especially important.
Source: Alan Chong, "The Concert," in Eye of the Beholder, edited by Alan Chong et al. (Boston: ISGM and Beacon Press, 2003): 149.
BibliographyNotesKabinet Konstige Schilderyen. Door de voornaamsten Nederlandsche en eenige andere meesters...verzamelt...den heer Johannes Lodewky Strantwyk... (Amsterdam, 10 May 1780), p. 35, lot 150. (as Jan van der Meer)
Chez A. Paillet et H. Delaroche. Catalogue de la célèbre collection de tableaux de M. Van Leyden, d'Amsterdam... (Paris, 10 September 1804), pp. 45-46, lot 62.
A. Paillet and M. Chariot. Catalogue des tableaux, printures, a la gouche, en émail et en miniatures... (Paris, 8 January 1810), pp. 17-18, lot 59.
Charles Elie. Catalogue de la belle galerie de tableaux... (Paris, 24 April 1810), pp. 34-35, lot 101.
Messrs. E. Foster and Son. A Catalogue of Pictures of the Italian, Dutch, French, and English Schools... (London, 26 February 1835), p. 8, lot 127.
Messrs. Christie, Manson, and Woods. Catalogue of a valuable assemblage of Italian, Spanish, Flemish, Dutch, French, and English Pictures... (London, 2 April 1860), p. 8, lot 49.
Charles Pillet, Haro, and Charles Mannheim. Catalogue de tableaux objets d'art et de curiosité... (Paris, 1-3 April 1869), p. 11, lot 14.
Hotel Drouot. Catalogue de Tableaux Anciens Oeuvres Remarquables de Van Der Meer de Delft... (Paris, 7 December 1892), pp. 22-23, lot 31, ill.
Art Exhibition: Mrs. John L. Gardner, 152 Beacon St., Boston. Exh. cat. (Boston, 1899), p. 6, no. 9.
Catalogue. Fenway Court. (Boston, 1903), pp. 14-15. (as dated 1632-1675)
John La Farge et al (eds.). Noteworthy Paintings in American Private Collections, vol. 1 (New York, 1907), pp. 112-13, 205-06, ill.
Catalogue. Fenway Court. (Boston, 1912), p. 13.
A.E. Gallatin. "Vermeer of Delft." The American Magazine of Art (Aug. 1917), pp. 384, 389-90, ill.
David Lloyd. "Vermeers in America." International Studio (Nov. 1917), p. 124.
Morris Carter. Isabella Stewart Gardner and Fenway Court (Boston, 1925; Reprint, Boston, 1972), p. 134-35.
Philip Hendy. Catalogue of the Exhibited Paintings and Drawings (Boston, 1931), pp. 405-07, ill.
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), pp. 179-80, pl. 16.
Stuart Preston. "The Concert" in Alfred M. Frankfurter (ed.). The Gardner Collection (New York, 1946), p. 46-47, ills.
Morris Carter. "Mrs. Gardner & The Treasures of Fenway Court" in Alfred M. Frankfurter (ed.). The Gardner Collection (New York, 1946), p. 56.
A.B. De Vries. Jan Vermeer van Delft (London, 1948), p. 85, pl. 14. (as dated 1658-1660)
P.T.A. Swillens. Johannes Vermeer: Painter of Delft, 1632-1675 (New York, 1950), pp. 52-53, 72, 78-82, 87-89, 103, 117, 217, 219, pls. 7, 47, cat. 7.
La Galerie de la Pléiade. Vermeer de Delft (Montréal, 1952), pp. 23, 60-61, pl. xi, ill.
Ludwig Goldscheider. Jan Vermeer: The Paintings Complete Edition (London, 1958), pp. 85-86, 136, pls. 39, 40. (as dated about 1662)
Arthur Pope. “Notes, Records, Comments.” Gardner Museum Calendar of Events 7, no. 38 (17 May 1964), p. 2.
Piero Bianconi. The Complete Paintings of Vermeer (New York, 1967), pp. 33-34, 91, pls. xvii-xviii, cat. 19.
Magdeleine Mocquot. "Vermeer et le portrait en double miror." Le Club Français de la Médaille (1968), pp. 67-69, ill.
George L. Stout. Treasures from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1969), pp. 13, 160-61, ill.
John Walsh, Jr. "Vermeer." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin (Summer 1973), pp. 30-31, fig. 39. (as dated early 1660s)
Philip Hendy. European and American Paintings in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1974), pp. 282-85, ill., pl. XXXIII.
Albert Blankert et al. Johannes Vermeer van Delft, 1632-1675 (Utrecht, 1975), pp. 77, 151, 189, cat. 17. (as dated about 1664)
Frima Fox Hofrichter. "Judith Leyster's Proposition: Between Virtue and Vice." Feminist Art Journal (Fall 1975), p. 25, fig. 8.
Christopher Wright. Vermeer (London, 1976), pp. 11-12, 15, 41, 76, 79, 82-83, 86, pl. 15.
Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. Perspective, Optics, and Delft Artists Around 1650 (New York, 1977), pp. xii, 288, 300, fig. 95. (as dated 1665-1667)
Edward A. Snow. A Study of Vermeer (Berkley, 1979) pp. 40, 81-86, 88, 92, 93, 97, 106, 154, 164, figs. 34, 36.
Rollin van N. Hadley. Museums Discovered: The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1981), pp. 10, 90-91 ill.
Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. Jan Vermeer (London, 1981), pp. 33, 36, 70, 100, 120-23, 152, pl. 29-20. (dated as 1665-1666)
Ignacio L. Moreno. "Vermeer's The Concert: A Study in Harmony and Contrasts." The Rutgers Art Review (Jan. 1982), pp. 50-57, no. 1. (as about 1665)
David M. Bergeron. Shakespeare's Romances and the Royal Family (Lawrence, 1985), pp. 224-26, ill. (as dated about 1664)
Rollin van N. Hadley (ed.). The Letters of Bernard Berenson and Isabella Stewart Gardner 1887-1924 (Boston, 1987), pp. xix, 81, 84.
David R. Smith. "Iron and Civility: Notes on the Convergence of Genre and Portraiture in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting." The Art Bulletin (Sept. 1987), pp. 424, 426-27, fig. 27.
Ben Broos et al. Great Dutch Paintings from America. Exh. cat. (The Hague: Mauritshuis, 1990) p. 120, fig. 1.
Colleen Denney. "Exhibitions in Artists' Studios: François Bovin's 1859 Salon Des Refusés." Gazette des Beaux-Arts (Sept. 1993), p. 102, fig. 7.
Daniel Arasse. Vermeer: Faith in Painting (Princeton, 1994), pp. 9-10, 22-24, 29, 38-39, 93, 96, 109, 118, fig 4.
Hilliard Goldfarb. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: A Companion Guide and History (Boston, 1995), pp. 13, 92-93, 96, 103, ill.
Seymour Slive. Dutch Painting, 1600-1800 (New Haven, 1995), pp. 149-50, fig. 193.
Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. Vermeer and the Art of Painting (New Haven, 1995), pp. 111-19, 122-23, 135, figs. 80, 82, 83.
Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. (ed.). Johannes Vermeer. Exh. cat. (Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1995), p. 17, fig. 1.
Martin Bailey. Vermeer (London, 1996), p. 31.
Edwin Buijsen. "Music in the Age of Vermeer" in Donald Haks et al. (eds.). Dutch Society in the Age of Vermeer. Exh. cat. (The Hague: Hague Historical Museum, 1996), pp. 106, 109, 120, fig. 5. (as dated 1665-1666)
Christiane Hertel. Vermeer: Reception and Interpretation (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 48-50, fig. 15.
Irene Netta. Das Phänomen Zeit bei Jan Vermeer van Delft... (New York, 1996), pp. 171, 174, 272, 278, abb. 38.
Lawrence Gowing. Vermeer (London, 1997), pp. 37-39, 49, 52, 55, figs. b, c, 22, 23.
Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. Vermeer: The Complete Works (New York, 1997), pp. 4, 48-49, pl. 22.
Dennis P. Weller. "Late Arrivals: Caravaggio's Dutch and Flemish Legacy in America" in Vicki Balkcum (ed.). Sinners and Saints, Darkness and Light: Caravaggio and His Dutch and Flemish Followers. Exh. cat. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1998), pp. 46-47, 53. fig. 6.
Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. The Public and Private in the Age of Vermeer (London, 2000), p. 203, ill.
Walter Liedatke et al. Vermeer and the Delft School. Exh. cat. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001), pp. 112, 148-49, 152, 163, 383, 397, 399, fig. 161 (as dated 1665-1667)
Anthony Bailey. Vermeer (Berlin, 2002), pp. 136, 138, 172, 249, 262-65, 268, 287, ill. (as dated 1665-1666)
John Nash. Vermeer (Amsterdam, 2002), pp. 71-74, ill.
Alan Chong et al. (eds.) Eye of the Beholder: Masterpieces from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 2003), pp. 131, 148-49, ill. (as dated about 1665)
Albert Blankert et al. Vermeer (New York, 2007), pp. 50-51,88, 120-21, 160,183-84, 223, pl. 17, figs. 73, 94, no. 17. (dated as 1664)
Cynthia Saltzman. Old Masters, New World: America’s Raid on Europe’s Great Pictures (New York: Penguin Books, 2008), p. 46.
Walter Liedtke. Vermeer: The Complete Paintings (Ghent, 2008), pp.108-11, 195, no. 16. (as dated 1663-1666)
Norbert Scheider. Vermeer: The Complete Paintings (Los Angeles, 2010), pp. 38, 40, 44, 90, 94, ills.
Marjorie E. Wieseman et al. Vermeer's Women: Secrets and Silence (New Haven, 2011), pp. 21-23, 96-100, pl. 13, 60.
Richard C. Johnson, Jr. and William A. Sethares. "Weave Map Report: The Concert, Johannes Vermeer..." in C. Richard Johnson Jr. and William A. Sethares (eds.). Counting Vermeer: Using Weave Maps to Study Vermeer's Canvases (RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History, 2017), accessed 27 November 2017. http://countingvermeer.rkdmonographs.nl/
Jeremy Howard. "Selling Botticelli to America: Colnaghi, Bernard Berenson and the Sale of the Madonna of the Eucharist to Isabella Stewart Gardner." Colnaghi Studies 4 (March 2019), p. 140.
Holly Salmon, "The Five Frames Left Behind," Inside the Collection (blog), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 15 March 2022, https://www.gardnermuseum.org/blog/five-frames-left-behind
Pieter Roelofs et al. Vermeer. Exh. cat. (Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, 2023),pp.12, 26-27, 76, 183, 186-189, 211, 226, 231, 280-281, no. 17.
Chez A. Paillet et H. Delaroche. Catalogue de la célèbre collection de tableaux de M. Van Leyden, d'Amsterdam... (Paris, 10 September 1804), pp. 45-46, lot 62.
A. Paillet and M. Chariot. Catalogue des tableaux, printures, a la gouche, en émail et en miniatures... (Paris, 8 January 1810), pp. 17-18, lot 59.
Charles Elie. Catalogue de la belle galerie de tableaux... (Paris, 24 April 1810), pp. 34-35, lot 101.
Messrs. E. Foster and Son. A Catalogue of Pictures of the Italian, Dutch, French, and English Schools... (London, 26 February 1835), p. 8, lot 127.
Messrs. Christie, Manson, and Woods. Catalogue of a valuable assemblage of Italian, Spanish, Flemish, Dutch, French, and English Pictures... (London, 2 April 1860), p. 8, lot 49.
Charles Pillet, Haro, and Charles Mannheim. Catalogue de tableaux objets d'art et de curiosité... (Paris, 1-3 April 1869), p. 11, lot 14.
Hotel Drouot. Catalogue de Tableaux Anciens Oeuvres Remarquables de Van Der Meer de Delft... (Paris, 7 December 1892), pp. 22-23, lot 31, ill.
Art Exhibition: Mrs. John L. Gardner, 152 Beacon St., Boston. Exh. cat. (Boston, 1899), p. 6, no. 9.
Catalogue. Fenway Court. (Boston, 1903), pp. 14-15. (as dated 1632-1675)
John La Farge et al (eds.). Noteworthy Paintings in American Private Collections, vol. 1 (New York, 1907), pp. 112-13, 205-06, ill.
Catalogue. Fenway Court. (Boston, 1912), p. 13.
A.E. Gallatin. "Vermeer of Delft." The American Magazine of Art (Aug. 1917), pp. 384, 389-90, ill.
David Lloyd. "Vermeers in America." International Studio (Nov. 1917), p. 124.
Morris Carter. Isabella Stewart Gardner and Fenway Court (Boston, 1925; Reprint, Boston, 1972), p. 134-35.
Philip Hendy. Catalogue of the Exhibited Paintings and Drawings (Boston, 1931), pp. 405-07, ill.
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), pp. 179-80, pl. 16.
Stuart Preston. "The Concert" in Alfred M. Frankfurter (ed.). The Gardner Collection (New York, 1946), p. 46-47, ills.
Morris Carter. "Mrs. Gardner & The Treasures of Fenway Court" in Alfred M. Frankfurter (ed.). The Gardner Collection (New York, 1946), p. 56.
A.B. De Vries. Jan Vermeer van Delft (London, 1948), p. 85, pl. 14. (as dated 1658-1660)
P.T.A. Swillens. Johannes Vermeer: Painter of Delft, 1632-1675 (New York, 1950), pp. 52-53, 72, 78-82, 87-89, 103, 117, 217, 219, pls. 7, 47, cat. 7.
La Galerie de la Pléiade. Vermeer de Delft (Montréal, 1952), pp. 23, 60-61, pl. xi, ill.
Ludwig Goldscheider. Jan Vermeer: The Paintings Complete Edition (London, 1958), pp. 85-86, 136, pls. 39, 40. (as dated about 1662)
Arthur Pope. “Notes, Records, Comments.” Gardner Museum Calendar of Events 7, no. 38 (17 May 1964), p. 2.
Piero Bianconi. The Complete Paintings of Vermeer (New York, 1967), pp. 33-34, 91, pls. xvii-xviii, cat. 19.
Magdeleine Mocquot. "Vermeer et le portrait en double miror." Le Club Français de la Médaille (1968), pp. 67-69, ill.
George L. Stout. Treasures from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1969), pp. 13, 160-61, ill.
John Walsh, Jr. "Vermeer." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin (Summer 1973), pp. 30-31, fig. 39. (as dated early 1660s)
Philip Hendy. European and American Paintings in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1974), pp. 282-85, ill., pl. XXXIII.
Albert Blankert et al. Johannes Vermeer van Delft, 1632-1675 (Utrecht, 1975), pp. 77, 151, 189, cat. 17. (as dated about 1664)
Frima Fox Hofrichter. "Judith Leyster's Proposition: Between Virtue and Vice." Feminist Art Journal (Fall 1975), p. 25, fig. 8.
Christopher Wright. Vermeer (London, 1976), pp. 11-12, 15, 41, 76, 79, 82-83, 86, pl. 15.
Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. Perspective, Optics, and Delft Artists Around 1650 (New York, 1977), pp. xii, 288, 300, fig. 95. (as dated 1665-1667)
Edward A. Snow. A Study of Vermeer (Berkley, 1979) pp. 40, 81-86, 88, 92, 93, 97, 106, 154, 164, figs. 34, 36.
Rollin van N. Hadley. Museums Discovered: The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1981), pp. 10, 90-91 ill.
Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. Jan Vermeer (London, 1981), pp. 33, 36, 70, 100, 120-23, 152, pl. 29-20. (dated as 1665-1666)
Ignacio L. Moreno. "Vermeer's The Concert: A Study in Harmony and Contrasts." The Rutgers Art Review (Jan. 1982), pp. 50-57, no. 1. (as about 1665)
David M. Bergeron. Shakespeare's Romances and the Royal Family (Lawrence, 1985), pp. 224-26, ill. (as dated about 1664)
Rollin van N. Hadley (ed.). The Letters of Bernard Berenson and Isabella Stewart Gardner 1887-1924 (Boston, 1987), pp. xix, 81, 84.
David R. Smith. "Iron and Civility: Notes on the Convergence of Genre and Portraiture in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting." The Art Bulletin (Sept. 1987), pp. 424, 426-27, fig. 27.
Ben Broos et al. Great Dutch Paintings from America. Exh. cat. (The Hague: Mauritshuis, 1990) p. 120, fig. 1.
Colleen Denney. "Exhibitions in Artists' Studios: François Bovin's 1859 Salon Des Refusés." Gazette des Beaux-Arts (Sept. 1993), p. 102, fig. 7.
Daniel Arasse. Vermeer: Faith in Painting (Princeton, 1994), pp. 9-10, 22-24, 29, 38-39, 93, 96, 109, 118, fig 4.
Hilliard Goldfarb. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: A Companion Guide and History (Boston, 1995), pp. 13, 92-93, 96, 103, ill.
Seymour Slive. Dutch Painting, 1600-1800 (New Haven, 1995), pp. 149-50, fig. 193.
Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. Vermeer and the Art of Painting (New Haven, 1995), pp. 111-19, 122-23, 135, figs. 80, 82, 83.
Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. (ed.). Johannes Vermeer. Exh. cat. (Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1995), p. 17, fig. 1.
Martin Bailey. Vermeer (London, 1996), p. 31.
Edwin Buijsen. "Music in the Age of Vermeer" in Donald Haks et al. (eds.). Dutch Society in the Age of Vermeer. Exh. cat. (The Hague: Hague Historical Museum, 1996), pp. 106, 109, 120, fig. 5. (as dated 1665-1666)
Christiane Hertel. Vermeer: Reception and Interpretation (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 48-50, fig. 15.
Irene Netta. Das Phänomen Zeit bei Jan Vermeer van Delft... (New York, 1996), pp. 171, 174, 272, 278, abb. 38.
Lawrence Gowing. Vermeer (London, 1997), pp. 37-39, 49, 52, 55, figs. b, c, 22, 23.
Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. Vermeer: The Complete Works (New York, 1997), pp. 4, 48-49, pl. 22.
Dennis P. Weller. "Late Arrivals: Caravaggio's Dutch and Flemish Legacy in America" in Vicki Balkcum (ed.). Sinners and Saints, Darkness and Light: Caravaggio and His Dutch and Flemish Followers. Exh. cat. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1998), pp. 46-47, 53. fig. 6.
Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. The Public and Private in the Age of Vermeer (London, 2000), p. 203, ill.
Walter Liedatke et al. Vermeer and the Delft School. Exh. cat. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001), pp. 112, 148-49, 152, 163, 383, 397, 399, fig. 161 (as dated 1665-1667)
Anthony Bailey. Vermeer (Berlin, 2002), pp. 136, 138, 172, 249, 262-65, 268, 287, ill. (as dated 1665-1666)
John Nash. Vermeer (Amsterdam, 2002), pp. 71-74, ill.
Alan Chong et al. (eds.) Eye of the Beholder: Masterpieces from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 2003), pp. 131, 148-49, ill. (as dated about 1665)
Albert Blankert et al. Vermeer (New York, 2007), pp. 50-51,88, 120-21, 160,183-84, 223, pl. 17, figs. 73, 94, no. 17. (dated as 1664)
Cynthia Saltzman. Old Masters, New World: America’s Raid on Europe’s Great Pictures (New York: Penguin Books, 2008), p. 46.
Walter Liedtke. Vermeer: The Complete Paintings (Ghent, 2008), pp.108-11, 195, no. 16. (as dated 1663-1666)
Norbert Scheider. Vermeer: The Complete Paintings (Los Angeles, 2010), pp. 38, 40, 44, 90, 94, ills.
Marjorie E. Wieseman et al. Vermeer's Women: Secrets and Silence (New Haven, 2011), pp. 21-23, 96-100, pl. 13, 60.
Richard C. Johnson, Jr. and William A. Sethares. "Weave Map Report: The Concert, Johannes Vermeer..." in C. Richard Johnson Jr. and William A. Sethares (eds.). Counting Vermeer: Using Weave Maps to Study Vermeer's Canvases (RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History, 2017), accessed 27 November 2017. http://countingvermeer.rkdmonographs.nl/
Jeremy Howard. "Selling Botticelli to America: Colnaghi, Bernard Berenson and the Sale of the Madonna of the Eucharist to Isabella Stewart Gardner." Colnaghi Studies 4 (March 2019), p. 140.
Holly Salmon, "The Five Frames Left Behind," Inside the Collection (blog), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 15 March 2022, https://www.gardnermuseum.org/blog/five-frames-left-behind
Pieter Roelofs et al. Vermeer. Exh. cat. (Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, 2023),pp.12, 26-27, 76, 183, 186-189, 211, 226, 231, 280-281, no. 17.
ProvenanceNotesPurchased by A. Delfos, probably for Diederik van Leyden, Lord of Vlaardingen (1744-1810) from the sale of the Johannes Lodewyk Strantwyk collection at Kabinet Konstige Schilderyen, Amsterdam for 315 florins on 10 May 1780, lot 150.
Purchased by the dealer A. Paillet from the sale of the M. Van Leyden collection at Chez A. Paillet et H. Delaroche, Paris for 350 francs on 10 September 1804, lot 62.
Purchased by the dealer Laneuville, probably from Antoine de Sauzay, the director at Mont-Blanc (1745-1821) at Chez A. Paillet, Paris for 131 francs on 8 January 1810, lot 62.
Offered for sale from the painter and dealer Charles Elie, Paris on 24 April 1810, lot 101.
Offered for sale at Messrs, E. Foster and Son, London on 26 February 1835, lot 127.
Offered for sale at Messrs. Christie, Manson, and Woods on 2 April 1860, lot 49.
Purchased by an unknown buyer, possibly from the collector Prince Paul Demidoff (1798-1840), through the art dealers Charles Pillet, Haro, and Mannheim, Paris for 5100 francs on 1 April 1869, lot 14.
Purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner from the journalist and art critic Thoré-Bürger (Étienne Joseph Théophile Thoré) (1807-1869) at Hotel Drouot, Paris for 29,000 francs on 5 December 1892, lot 31, through Fernand Robert, her regular agent in Paris.
Stolen in 1990.
Purchased by the dealer A. Paillet from the sale of the M. Van Leyden collection at Chez A. Paillet et H. Delaroche, Paris for 350 francs on 10 September 1804, lot 62.
Purchased by the dealer Laneuville, probably from Antoine de Sauzay, the director at Mont-Blanc (1745-1821) at Chez A. Paillet, Paris for 131 francs on 8 January 1810, lot 62.
Offered for sale from the painter and dealer Charles Elie, Paris on 24 April 1810, lot 101.
Offered for sale at Messrs, E. Foster and Son, London on 26 February 1835, lot 127.
Offered for sale at Messrs. Christie, Manson, and Woods on 2 April 1860, lot 49.
Purchased by an unknown buyer, possibly from the collector Prince Paul Demidoff (1798-1840), through the art dealers Charles Pillet, Haro, and Mannheim, Paris for 5100 francs on 1 April 1869, lot 14.
Purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner from the journalist and art critic Thoré-Bürger (Étienne Joseph Théophile Thoré) (1807-1869) at Hotel Drouot, Paris for 29,000 francs on 5 December 1892, lot 31, through Fernand Robert, her regular agent in Paris.
Stolen in 1990.
Object/Book
