| The Procuress | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Dirck van Baburen |
| Year | c. 1622 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 101.6 cm× 107.6 cm(40.0 in× 42.4 in) |
| Location | Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston |
The Procuress is the name given to a number of similar paintings by the Dutch Golden Age painter Dirck van Baburen. The painting is in the Caravaggiesque style of the Utrecht school.
The painting shows three figures: a prostitute on the left, the client in the middle and the procuress on the right pointing to her palm to indicate that she is expecting payment. The client is holding a coin between his fingers as he puts his arm around the prostitute, who is playing a lute. The painting is an example of the popular genre known as Bordeeltjes, or brothel scenes (see also the overlapping genre of Merry company scenes). [1] The cropped, close-up figures close to the picture plane against a flat blank background are typical of Utrecht Caravaggism. [2]
There are at least three versions of the painting. The versions in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam [3] and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston [4] are attributed to Dirck van Baburen or his studio. One copy of the painting was owned by Maria Thins, mother-in-law of Johannes Vermeer, who reproduced it in the background of two of his own paintings. A copy owned by the Courtauld Institute in London has been identified as the work of the forger Han van Meegeren. This was featured in the third episode of the BBC TV series, Fake or Fortune? . [5]
One of these paintings was owned by Vermeer's mother-in-law, and it may have been an influence on one of his own early paintings on a similar subject, also known as The Procuress (1656). [2] It also appears in the background of two of Vermeer's later paintings, The Concert (c.1664) and Lady Seated at a Virginal (c.1670). In both of these later paintings the blatant lust depicted by Baburen is contrasted with the genteel, but erotically charged, middle-class world occupied by Vermeer's women. The contrast between the images may also imply "a more general association between music and love". [6] Vermeer sets up a series of contrasts between his own delicate, restrained style and Baburen's vulgar realism. According to Michael Wayne Cole and Mary Pardo this represents Vermeer's own move away from such low-life subjects. The older, cruder style of Baburen is relegated to the background, "eclipsing it with the more modern kind of genteel subject that Vermeer would soon paint exclusively". [7]
In 1960, Geoffrey Webb presented a version of the painting to the Courtauld Institute. At the end of the Second World War, he had been an allied officer in Europe investigating art works looted by the Nazis. He believed it was a fake painted by Han van Meegeren, and he presented it to the Courtauld as such. In his own defense, van Meegeren claimed that the painting had been bought in an antique shop by his wife. [8] Although the painting was initially believed to be a fake, its authenticity remained controversial, and in 2009 a scientific study indicated that the painting was likely to be genuine, as no modern pigments were found. A spokesperson for the gallery stated that they were "surprised" by the results, but that the evidence indicated that it was "likely to be a 17th-century painting". [9]
Following this, the BBC TV programme Fake or Fortune? conducted a further investigation. [5] The resulting film was first shown July 2011. [5] Philip Mould and Fiona Bruce traveled to Amsterdam where they obtained samples of the paints used by van Meegeren. [5] These included an artificial resin which turned out to be Bakelite. [5] The use of Bakelite had the effect of hardening the paint and thus making it difficult to detect that it was new. [5] Chemical analysis showed Bakelite in the Courtauld painting, thus confirming that it was a modern forgery. [5] Van Meegeren is the only forger known to have used this technique, so the painting was attributed to him. [5] It was probably intended to be used as a prop in Vermeer forgeries. [5] Ironically, it is now more valuable as a van Meegeren forgery than as a 17th-century studio copy. [5]
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.
Henricus Antonius "Han" van Meegeren was a Dutch painter and portraitist, considered one of the most ingenious art forgers of the 20th century. Van Meegeren became a national hero after World War II when it was revealed that he had sold a forged painting to Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.
Art forgery is the creation and sale of works of art which are falsely credited to other, usually more famous artists. Art forgery can be extremely lucrative, but modern dating and analysis techniques have made the identification of forged artwork much simpler.
Dirck Jaspersz. van Baburen was a Dutch painter and one of the Utrecht Caravaggisti.
The Caravaggisti were stylistic followers of the late 16th-century Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio. His influence on the new Baroque style that eventually emerged from Mannerism was profound. Caravaggio never established a workshop as most other painters did, and thus had no school to spread his techniques. Nor did he ever set out his underlying philosophical approach to art, the psychological realism which can only be deduced from his surviving work. But it can be seen directly or indirectly in the work of Rubens, Jusepe de Ribera, Bernini, and Rembrandt. Famous while he lived, Caravaggio himself was forgotten almost immediately after his death. Many of his paintings were re-ascribed to his followers, such as The Taking of Christ, which was attributed to the Dutch painter Gerrit van Honthorst until 1990.
Gerard van Honthorst was a Dutch Golden Age painter who became known for his depiction of artificially lit scenes, eventually receiving the nickname Gherardo delle Notti. Early in his career he visited Rome, where he had great success painting in a style influenced by Caravaggio. Following his return to the Netherlands he became a leading portrait painter. Van Honthorst's contemporaries included Utrecht painters Hendrick Ter Brugghen and Dirck van Baburen.
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.
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Lady Seated at a Virginal, also known as Young Woman Seated at a Virginal, is a genre painting created by the Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer in about 1670–1672 and now in the National Gallery, London.
Jacques Henri Emil van Meegeren was a Dutch illustrator and painter.
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The Procuress is a 1656 oil-on-canvas painting by the then 24-year-old Johannes Vermeer. It can be seen in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden. It is his first genre painting and shows a scene of contemporary life, an image of mercenary love perhaps in a brothel. It differs from his earlier biblical and mythological scenes. It is one of only three paintings Vermeer signed and dated. In 1696 the painting, being sold on an auction in Amsterdam, was named "A merry company in a room".
Theo van Wijngaarden was a Dutch art forger.
Aviva Ruth Burnstock is head of the Department of Art Conservation & Technology at the Courtauld Institute, London. Professor Burnstock is a graduate of the University of Sussex and took in 1991 a PhD at the Courtauld Institute
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Media related to The Procuress by Dirck van Baburen at Wikimedia Commons