How Many Paintings Did Vermeer Actually Create?
Here we are back again with another highly controversial and debated topic within the art community. Vermeer, one of the greatest Dutch masters, is credited for 34 paintings however is this the right number? Is there a chance that his daughter is the true artist behind six of these famous works? Let’s find out.
Vermeer
Loyal readers will remember that not too long ago I did a piece on The Girl with a Pearl Earring, arguably Vermeer’s most famous painting. However, I didn’t give you much background on the guy himself. It wasn’t super relevant to that discussion but it is going to be the MOST relevant to this story. This might seem a little long winded but stick with it, I promise I’m going somewhere with this.
So, Johannes Vermeer was born in 1632 in Delft, Holland. Not a ton is known about him and his personal life, a few details have come out more recently but still it is not a lot of information. He was born into a middle-class family where his father was a silk worker and later began dealing in paintings. When his father died, Vermeer ended up taking over the family art business, so he has been around art essentially his entire life.
In April 1653 Vermeer married his wife Catharina who was Catholic (note: Vermeer had been baptized into the Reformed Church). Since Catharina’s family was significantly wealthier than Vermeer’s, his new mother-in-law ~encouraged~ him to convert. And actually, I was expecting this to be a bit of a sticking point for Vermeer but it actually seems like after his conversion he embraced his new church wholeheartedly and started creating very complex symbolic paintings for learned members of the Catholic church. Catharina and Vermeer had 15 children (!!!) 11 of which survived to their baptism (and beyond). One of these children was named Maria.
Vermeer goes on to live his life, there are some wars and some hard times and he paints roughly 34 paintings over the course of it (that we know of/still exist). I know I’m glossing over this part but the interesting stuff only happens after his death, sorry.
In 1675 Vermeer dies after a short illness. Shortly before his death the family had started to get into some deep debt. Vermeer had borrowed money from various merchants and lenders in Amsterdam and had even used his mother-in-law’s house, where they were living, as collateral to secure a loan. After his death Catharina asked the city to relieve her of some of these debts since she had 11 children to raise on her own. So the city did so but the new widow ended up having to give two paintings to a man named Hendrick van Buyten to pay off one substantial debt (remember this, it’s the important piece).
Maria
Since there is so little known about Vermeer there is EVEN LESS known about his eldest daughter Maria. A lot of what I’m going to say from here on out is not definitively proven but is an incredibly compelling theory, to me at least, and we love to see some badass women in art so let’s go!
It’s said that Maria Vermeer was an inherently talented young woman, how could you not be as the daughter of Vermeer. Because his studio was inside their home she was able to learn from her father and watch him as he worked, and as she got older she started playing around with the paints herself. Some say that this fostered a sense of friendly competition between the father and daughter and that Maria would sometimes paint her own version of whatever model or setting Vermeer was working on. This resulted in two very similar paintings but at different skill levels within Vermeer’s body of work. “For instance, Young Woman with a Guitar (c. 1674) emulates Girl with a Guitar (c. 1674). Portrait of a Young Woman (c. 1672) is also very similar to Girl with a Pearl Earring (c. 1670)” (Perring, 2020). I will show you these comparisons in a second! Beyond those paintings it is also said that Maria went on to develop her own style.
After her father’s death, as I said, Catharina and the family were saddled with a ton of debt and loans that needed to be paid off. So one theory is that Maria was the true artist of those two paintings the family gave to Hendrick van Buyten to settle that debt. Unfortunately, people who believe this theory think that Maria never went on to produce any more work because she ended up getting married and this sort of activity was not “ladylike” or allowed. Boo.
The Paintings in Question
So as the theory goes, there are six Vermeer paintings (known as the misfits) that should actually be attributed to Maria Vermeer. They are: Mistress and Maid, Woman with a Lute (these are the two that were traded against the debt), Portrait of a Young Woman, Young Women with a Guitar, Girl with a Red Hat, and Girl with a Flute. These last two, some have argued, have an almost self-portrait quality and if that is true these are portraits of Maria herself.
When you look at all of these paintings together, Girl with a Red Hat and Girl with a Flute definitely resemble each other in terms of the subject. Looks like the same woman in each one. Additionally, to me at least, it seems as though Maria is branching away from Vermeer’s traditional style and putting more of her own spin on it in these two paintings.
Proof?
In terms of hard proof, obviously there is none. Vermeer never registered any apprentices, however if Maria had apprenticed for him he wouldn’t have had to register her since she was his child. Also, they likely wanted to keep her talents a secret so that during Vermeer’s life and after it they could get away with selling these paintings as Vermeer originals or trading them against their debts.
The thing I find most compelling is comparing works potentially done by Maria and those done by her father. It is interesting to look at Young Woman with a Guitar and Girl with a Guitar side by side. It is clear that the two paintings were created by referencing the same, or very similar model, in the same pose. It’s likely that Maria was able to sit with her father while he was working and create her own version of the same painting.
And, when comparing Portrait of a Young Woman and Girl with a Pearl Earring these two are very similar in composition. However, in this example Portrait of a Young Woman “presents undeniable weaknesses” (Binstock, 2009 p.258). These weaknesses are identified as “the sitter’s forehead is too big, her pearl earring is obscured, her hair disappears into the background, and the folds of her clothing disregard the shape of her body” (Perring, 2020). When looking at the two paintings side by side and reading this critique it is easy to see that one is of a higher quality than the other, however, at the time, and even still now, Vermeer’s name was enough to make buyers overlook these details.
The final detail that really convinces me is The Girl with a Red Hat, said to be a self-portrait of Maria. It is said that this painting specifically was created using a different style, and less finesse than Vermeer himself would have. However, this painting is created using “the same pigments, model, room, and objects” (Binstock, 2009 p.252) that Vermeer used. This is the piece of information that sealed it for me but I’ll let you make up your own mind.
All of this is super compelling to me and I would like to believe that it’s true. It doesn’t take anything away from the genius that was Vermeer, he remains one of my all time faves, but I love the thought of him and his daughter working side by side to create these masterpieces.
Works Cited
Binstock, Benjamin. (2009). Vermeer’s Family Secrets: Genius, Discovery, and the Unknown Apprentice. Routledge.
Binstock, Benjamin. “Who Was The Girl with a Pearl Earring: One Historian Suggests she was Actually the Artist Who Painted a Fifth of the Works Attributed to Vermeer - His Daughter”. Slate. 2013. https://slate.com/culture/2013/10/vermeers-daughter-was-the-girl-with-the-pearl-earring-and-painted-later-vermeer-works.html
Perring, Sophia. “Maria Vermeer’s Secret Career”. Yiara Magazine. 2020. https://yiaramagazine.com/2020/07/18/maria-vermeers-secret-career-sophia-perring/