Mistress and Maid (Dutch: Dame en dienstbode) is an oil-on-canvas painting produced by Johannes Vermeer c. 1667. It portrays two women, a mistress and her maid, as they look over the mistress' letter. The painting displays Vermeer's preference for yellow and blue, female models, and domestic scenes. It is now in the Frick Collection in New York City.
Johannes Vermeer was born in 1632 in Delft, Holland. [1] He worked and lived in Delft all his life, although it is possible that he may have done an apprenticeship in another town such as Amsterdam or Utrecht for six years. A major stepping point in Vermeer's career was in 1653 when he joined the Guild of Saint Luke as a master and professional painter. Vermeer painted at a somewhat leisurely pace, producing two to three paintings a year; there are 35 known to exist today. Vermeer is thought to have made use of a camera obscura, which may have influenced the way he often painted highlights as unfocused circles of confusion. [2] Vermeer died at a relatively young age, 43, in 1675. He suffered most likely from a stroke or stress-induced heart attack. [3] The slow rate at which he produced paintings restricted Vermeer from becoming wealthy during his lifetime, and he died in debt. [3]
Mistress and Maid was painted during 1666–1667. The painting shows an elegant mistress and her maid as they look over a letter that the mistress just received. There is a strong use of yellow in the woman's elegant fur-lined overcoat, and blue in the silk tablecloth and the maid's apron. The focus of the painting is the two women as they are sitting at a desk, doing an everyday activity. Vermeer was known for his domestic scenes containing women. The light in the painting comes from the left, and falls on the mistress' face. The mistress has a pensive gaze, with her lips parted slightly and her fingertips lifted to her chin in a questioning manner. The lighted parts of the yellow overcoat are formed with sweeping brushstrokes of lead-tin-yellow and the shadows are created with definition. Vermeer uses a dark background, as he does in other paintings such as Portrait of a Young Woman and Girl with a Pearl Earring. Pearls were an important status symbol of the period and that was reflected in the mistress' fancy attire and her abundance of pearls.
Letters are a prevalent theme in Vermeer's paintings from the 1660s. Earlier works, such as Woman in Blue Reading a Letter (c. 1663–4), depict a woman by herself with a letter, but in this painting the added maid is a new element. The gestures and expressions of the two women suggest anxiety over the letter and its potential contents. [4] The painting is well preserved.
Johannes Vermeer was a Dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. He is considered one of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age. During his lifetime, he was a moderately successful provincial genre painter, recognized in Delft and The Hague. He produced relatively few paintings, primarily earning his living as an art dealer. He was not wealthy; at his death, his wife was left in debt.
The Milkmaid, sometimes called The Kitchen Maid, is an oil-on-canvas painting of a "milkmaid", in fact, a domestic kitchen maid, by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer. It is in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, which regards it as "unquestionably one of the museum's finest attractions".
Girl Interrupted at Her Music is a painting by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer. It was painted in the baroque style, probably between the years 1658 and 1659, using oil on canvas. Since 1901 it has been in the Frick Collection in New York City.
Girl with a Pearl Earring is an oil painting by Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer, dated c. 1665. Going by various names over the centuries, it became known by its present title towards the end of the 20th century after the earring worn by the girl portrayed there. The work has been in the collection of the Mauritshuis in The Hague since 1902 and has been the subject of various literary and cinematic treatments.
Girl with a Pearl Earring is a 1999 historical novel written by Tracy Chevalier. Set in 17th-century Delft, Holland, the novel was inspired by local painter Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring. Chevalier presents a fictional account of Vermeer, the model and the painting. The novel was adapted into a 2003 film of the same name and a 2008 play. In May 2020, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a new dramatisation of the novel.
The Concert is a painting by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer depicting a man and two women performing music. It was stolen on March 18, 1990, from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and remains missing. Experts believe it may be the most valuable stolen object in the world; as of 2015, it was valued at US$250 million.
Pieter Claeszoon van Ruijven has been known as Johannes Vermeer's main patron for the better part of the artist's career, but in 2023 his wife Maria de Knuijt was identified by the curators of the 2023 exhibition of Vermeer's works at the Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam as the main patron due to her long-standing and supportive relationship with the artist. He built a sizeable estate from inheritances he and his wife received and fruitful investments. In 1669, he became the Lord of Spalant when he purchased land owned by Willem, Baron van Renesse.
Study of a Young Woman is a painting by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer, completed between 1665 and 1667, and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid is a painting by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer, completed in 1670–1671 and held in the National Gallery of Ireland, in Dublin. The work shows a middle-class woman attended by a housemaid who is presumably acting as messenger and go-between for the lady and her lover. The work is seen as a bridge between the quiet restraint and self-containment of Vermeer's work of the 1660s and his relatively cooler work of the 1670s. It may have been partly inspired by Ter Borch's painting Woman Sealing a Letter. The painting's canvas was almost certainly cut from the same bolt used for Woman with a Lute.
The Allegory of Faith, also known as Allegory of the Catholic Faith, is a Dutch Golden Age painting by Johannes Vermeer from about 1670–1672. It has been in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since 1931.
Woman with a Lute, also known as Woman with a Lute Near a Window, is a painting created about 1662–1663 by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer and now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Officer and Laughing Girl, also known as Officer and a Laughing Girl, Officer With a Laughing Girl or, in Dutch, De Soldaat en het Lachende Meisje, is an oil painting on canvas executed ca. 1657 by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer. Its dimensions are 50.5 by 46 cm. It is now one of three pictures by Vermeer in The Frick Collection in New York.
View of Delft is an oil painting by Johannes Vermeer, painted c. 1659–1661. The painting of the Dutch artist's hometown is among his best known. It is one of three known paintings of Delft by Vermeer, along with The Little Street and the lost painting House Standing in Delft, and his only cityscape. According to art historian Emma Barker, cityscapes across water, which were popular in the Netherlands at the time, celebrated the city and its trade. Vermeer's View of Delft has been held in the Dutch Royal Cabinet of Paintings at the Mauritshuis in The Hague since its establishment in 1822.
Jacob Abrahamsz. Dissius was a Dutch typographer and printer. He inherited a collection of 21 of Johannes Vermeer's works, including The Milkmaid, Portrait of a Young Woman, A Girl Asleep, Woman Holding a Balance, and The Music Lesson. In 1680, he married Magdalena, daughter and sole heir of Vermeer's main patron Maria de Knuijt, her mother, with her father Pieter van Ruijven. Dissius died in 1695, and his collection was auctioned off in Amsterdam the following year.
Woman with a Pearl Necklace by Johannes Vermeer is a Dutch Golden Age painting of about 1664. Painted in oils on canvas, Johannes Vermeer portrayed a young Dutch woman, most likely of upper-class descent, dressing herself with two yellow ribbons, pearl earrings, and a pearl necklace. As a very popular artist of the 17th century, the Dutch Golden Age, Vermeer depicted many women in similar circumstances within interior, domestic scenes. The same woman also appears in The Love Letter and A Lady Writing a Letter. The painting is part of the collection of the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin.
The Guitar Player is an oil painting by Dutch Golden Age artist Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675), dated c. 1672. This work of art is one of Vermeer's final artistic activities, providing insight into the techniques he mastered and approaches to painting he favored. The painting has been on display at Kenwood House, London since the 1920s, as part of the Iveagh Bequest collection. After being recovered from a theft in 1974, when the painting was held for ransom, The Guitar Player was returned to Kenwood House.
Girl with a Pearl Earring is a 2003 drama film directed by Peter Webber from a screenplay by Olivia Hetreed, based on the 1999 novel of the same name by Tracy Chevalier. Scarlett Johansson stars as Griet, a young 17th-century servant in the household of the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer at the time he painted Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665) in the city of Delft in Holland. Other cast members include Tom Wilkinson, Cillian Murphy, Essie Davis, and Judy Parfitt.
Woman Reading a Letter is an oil painting by Dutch artist Gabriël Metsu, created c. 1665–1667, shortly before his death. During his lifetime, under the Golden Age of Dutch painting Metsu was a renowned painter, much better known than Vermeer. It is assumed to be a pair with Man Writing a Letter.
Johannes Vermeer was a Dutch Baroque Period painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle class life. His works have been a common theme in literature and films in popular culture since the rediscovery of his works by 20th century art scholars.
Maria Simonsdr de Knuijt was a patron of the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. She provided support and financial assistance to Vermeer throughout his career. De Knuijt was married to Pieter van Ruijven, a wealthy citizen of Delft, Netherlands. Pieter had been identified as Vermeer's main patron, owning more than half of Vermeer's oeuvre. Scholarship in 2023 identified de Knuijt as the main patron, as she had known him for some time and was more directly involved with the artist. After van Ruijven and de Knuijt died, their estate was inherited by their daughter Magdalena. She died about one year after her mother, and the estate was then inherited by her husband Jacob Dissius and his father Abraham Dissius.
