Johannes Vermeer Saint Praxedis

An image of concentrated devotion andmeditative poise, this famous painting ofSaint Praxedis is here offered for sale atauction for the first time in its briefdocumented history. First considered to be byVermeer in 1969, the picture has been thesubject of scholarly discussion ever since,largely on account of its unusual subjectmatter in the context of Vermeer and ofDutch painting in general. Saint Praxedis wasfirmly brought into the oeuvre of Vermeer in1986, and in 1995 featured in the seminalmonographic exhibition on the artist at theNational Gallery of Art, Washington andMauritshuis, The Hague, as his earliest knownpainting. At the time it was the only work byVermeer, from an established corpus of 36paintings, to remain in private hands. Sincethen, the ex-Beit/Rolin Lady at the Virginals, apicture that was for a long time dismissed asbeing by a follower of Vermeer, has beenre-accepted into the oeuvre further to its saleat auction in 2004 for 16,425 million(Sotheby's, London, 7 July 2004, lot 8) and isalso now in private ownership.fig.1), an established picture by Vermeer fromthe same period, have provided a precisematch. The match is so identical as tosuggest that the same batch of pigment couldhave been used for both paintings.Vermeer’s formative years as an artist are stillshrouded in mystery. He joined the painter’sguild in Delft in December 1653 but there isno record of him having served a formalapprenticeship in Delft or elsewhere.Suggestions that he might have trained inUtrecht or Amsterdam, or in Delft under thedistinguished Carel Fabritius have not foundgeneral support among art historians. Theconsensus of opinion instead suggests thatVermeer was much more likely to have beenself-taught. Walter Liedtke takes this view onthe basis of the sheer variety of the artist’searly output: “During the 1650s Vermeersurveyed a range of artistic ideas andcombined and modified them with anextraordinary degree of independence. Hisearly development is one example of anuncommon but hardly unknown phenomenonin the history of European art: a great artistwho essentially teaches himself” (W. Liedtke,Vermeer – The Complete Paintings, Bruges,2008, p. 21).At the outset of his career, it seems thatVermeer set out to be a history painter. Thetwo earliest pictures that are now universallyaccepted as by Vermeer are the Diana andher Companions (Mauritshuis, The Hague)and Christ in the House of Martha and Mary(National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh; seefig. 2). Neither is dated, but scholars areunanimous in placing them in the yearsbetween 1654 and 1656, although notnecessarily in the same order. A definiteterminus ante quem of 1656 is establishedfor both pictures by the dated Procuress(Gemäldegalerie, Dresden) which adopts acontemporary subject and truly anticipatesthe mature ‘modern’ style for which VermeerThe painting is here presented, as ArthurWheelock has always maintained, asVermeer's earliest dated work, an exploratorypainting by a young artist who had recentlyconverted to the Catholic faith and who had aproven interest in contemporary Italian art.Moreover, as a technical exercise by an artistwho had a profound understanding of theraw materials of painting, of pigments, colourand methods of application.These assertions are not new, but they arerestated here in the light of new evidenceyielded from a fresh technical analysis of thepicture conducted in the first half of 2014 atthe Rijksmuseum. This has provided acompelling endorsement of the Vermeerattribution. It has established: first - thatthere is no reason to suggest that thesignature and date is not integral to thepainting. Second - that the paint materialsare entirely characteristic of Dutch painting ofthe period and the lead white pigment isincontrovertibly not Italian. Finally, thatanalysis of lead white samples taken fromboth Saint Praxedis and from Diana and herCompanions (Mauritshuis, The Hague; see140is famed. It is in the context of these twoearly history paintings that Saint Praxedis hasto be judged.The composition of Saint Praxedis is borroweddirectly from a work by the Florentine artistFelice Ficherelli (1607-1660). Indeed thepicture first came to light as a Ficherelli itselfwhen it was lent to an exhibition on FlorentineBaroque painting at the Metropolitan Museumof Art in New York in 1969. It was then thatthe Vermeer signature was first noted by theconservation department at the museum,leading Michael Kitson, who reviewed theexhibition, to first consider the possibility thatthe Delft artist might have made a copy afterFicherelli (op. cit.) The signature is clearly offundamental importance to the Johnson SaintPraxedis, which without it, would almostcertainly never have been considered to be byVermeer (see fig. 3). Arthur Wheelockemphasized the point when he first publishedthe picture in 1986, further to scientificexamination of the painting conducted by avariety of conservators including Dr HemannKühn (Doerner Institute, Munich), ProfessorRees Jones (Courtauld Institute, London) andBarbara Miller (National Gallery of Art,Washington). They all found no serious reasonto doubt the originality of the signature anddate, a view that has recently been endorsedby the Rijksmuseum. The signature has beensubmitted to further testing in London byLibby Sheldon. Her observations can be citedin full: 'Although no firm conclusion about itsFig. 2 Johannes Vermeer, Christ in the House of Martha and Mary National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh / The Bridgeman Art Library[the signature's] exact date could be reached,the stability of the paint, when tested,suggested it had been on the painting for along time. The black paint which forms theinscription ‘Meer 1655’ has not beennoticeably reinforced. This black had a verysimilar appearance to that of the nearbyoriginal black shadow paint and its condition –the ways in which it has been broken up withage - supports the proposition that theinscription is old'. It must also be asked inwhat conceivable circumstances would aVermeer signature have been added to apicture apparently so unlikely for the artist.Wheelock also raised the possibility of asecond, hardly discernible signature, paintedthinly in light ochre in the right corner. Heaccepted Egbert Havercamp-Begeman’ssuggestion that it might have originally read:‘Meer naar Riposo’ (Riposo being the Italiannickname for Ficherelli; op. cit., 1986, pp.74-75). This signature is so indistinct thatrecent examination of it failed to yield anymeaningful interpretation.Fig. 1 Johannes Vermeer, Diana and her Companions Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis, The Hague / The Bridgeman Art LibraryFig. 3 Detail showing the signature of the present lotWhen the signatures were previouslyexamined at the National Gallery of Art inWashington, the paint materials wereexamined at the same time to determinewhether or not they were consistent withseventeenth century practices. Conservators141

The present lotconfirmed that they were, and found that theuse of a chalk ground and the distribution ofelements in the lead white were characteristicof Dutch as opposed to Italian paintingtechniques. This question of the origins of thepaint materials takes on special significance inthe case of Saint Praxedis since debate aboutthe picture has centered on the key issue as towhether it was painted in Italy or in Holland.Several eminent scholars have taken the viewfirst put forward by Wadum in 1998 that thepicture is Italian, if not by Ficherelli himself,and on that basis they have chosen todisregard it altogether from the Vermeer orthe wider Dutch context.In order to address this underlying issue, therecent technical analysis conducted by theRijksmuseum has focused on the lead whitepigment used throughout the painting of SaintPraxedis. Lead white was one of the mostcommonly used pigments by European artists142Fig. 4 Felice Ficherelli, Saint Praxedis (Fergnani collection, Ferrara)working in oils in the 17th century. It wasproduced on a large scale, it was relativelyinexpensive and widely available locally toartists of all schools. As a result, artists did nottravel with lead white, a fact born out byextensive studies of the pigment used byitinerant artists such as Van Dyck, Sweerts andRubens who were active both to the southand north of the Alps. The significance of leadwhite from an art historical perspective is thatisotope analysis is able to trace the origins ofthe lead and distinguish between cisalpine andtransalpine lead ores, the primary raw materialof metallic lead. “Like a fingerprint, the datacan be traced back from the pigment to itsraw form of metallic lead and to the lead ore.For example it can be determined if a leadwhite sample originates from a northern orsouthern source” (see D. Fabian and G.Fortunato, ‘Tracing White: A study of LeadWhite Pigments found in Seventeenth-CenturyPaintings using High Precision Lead IsotopeAbundance Ratios’, in Trade in Artist’sMaterials: Markets and Commerce in Europeto 1700, ed. by J. Kirby, S. Nash, and J. Canon,London 2010.)Particles of lead taken from samples of leadwhite pigment used in Saint Praxedis weresubmitted for high precision lead isotope ratioanalysis at the Free University, Amsterdam.The results placed the lead white squarely inthe Dutch/Flemish cluster of samples,establishing with certainty that its origin isnorth European and entirely consistent withmid-seventeenth century painting in Holland.Two separate samples from the picture havebeen tested to certify this result. This providesincontrovertible scientific proof that the picturewas not painted in Italy. Furthermore, a leadwhite sample taken from Diana and herCompanions was tested in the same mannerto allow for comparison between SaintPraxedis and a work from the sameapproximate date that is universally acceptedas by Vermeer. The outcome of this wasextraordinary, providing an almost identicalmatch of isotope abundance values betweenthe two samples. They relate so precisely as toeven suggest that the exact same batch ofpaint could have been used for both pictures.The technical report and the data from thisanalysis is available separately on request.In the 2012/13 Rome exhibition, Saint Praxediswas hung alongside the picture by Ficherelliwhich is now widely considered to be theprotoype for it (see fig. 4). The comparisonperhaps posed more questions than itanswered, not least as to whether anotherversion or a copy of the Ficherelli might haveserved as the actual model for the Johnsonpicture. Rather than endorse the primacy ofthe Ficherelli, notwithstanding its somewhatabraded state, the comparison ratheremphasized the expressive power and intensityof the Johnson painting. Indeed the exerciseunderlined one of the most disconcertingaspects about the Johnson painting in that thisdoes not have the character of a formulaicreplica. This was first noted by Wadum whomade the point that the paint has beenapplied, not from the front to the back in theway that a copy was usually made, but builtup, layer upon layer, in the manner of a primepicture. For instance, the ewer was notblocked out in the red dress before it waspainted, the red extends underneath the leftcorner and under the handles. As Wadumrightly asserts: ‘One would not expect to findthese phenomena, appearing like pentimenti,in an almost literal copy’ (loc. cit., p. 217).It could be argued that the vibrant, originalcharacter of Saint Praxedis supports ratherthan negates the argument for Vermeer'sauthorship. While it would be natural for aself-taught artist in his formative years to makeexperimental copies - the eclectic range ofVermeer's early output has been widely notedwould one expect an artist of Vermeer'stechnical ability and curiosity to make a plain,disinterested copy of the Florentine picture?Perhaps more likely, Vermeer would havestriven to get to the essence of Ficherelli'stechnique; to have adapted his style to that ofhis model while at the same time attemptedto invigorate the composition with his ownbravura interpretation. The most obviouscompositional difference between the twopictures is the addition of the crucifix in theJohnson picture, which, as the x-ray suggests,was probably added late on in the execution,serving to emphasise the religiosity of theimage. The artist also seems to have appliedthe paint more densely and heightened thecolour scheme, which lends the figure a moreintense physical presence. The use of theultramarine in the sky is significant on twocounts. First, it was one of the most expensive143

pigments available to an artist and thereforewas highly unlikely to be used as abundantlyas this in the production of a regular copy.More importantly, ultramarine is a pigmentthat is strongly associated with Vermeer. Heused it throughout his career and whereas heapplied it sparingly in the two other earlyhistory paintings, here it is used profusely andin a highly unusual manner, by any standards.The other principal difference between thetwo pictures is the attitude of Praxedis's head,here elongated slightly and painted with layersof small brushstrokes and softened contours.The result is an image of great meditativepoise and reflective contemplation which hasresounding echoes with other femaleprotagonists in Vermeer's later paintings.Wheelock has noted the striking similaritybetween the downcast faces of Saint Praxedisand the Maid Asleep, painted about two yearslater, which are almost mirror images of eachother (Metropolitan Museum, New York; seefig. 5; op. cit., 1986, p. 85).A strict comparison between the SaintPraxedis and the other two early paintings byVermeer is made difficult by the extent towhich the artist will have adapted his style toimitate Ficherelli’s. The painting techniquesused in each of the three early works alsovaries considerably. Nonetheless, a number ofstriking connections, both in composition andFig. 5 Johannes Vermeer, A Maid Asleep (detail) The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource/Scala,Florence, 2014144technique do exist. Most obviously, all threeare large-scale, figurative compositionsexecuted using unusually vivid colourcombinations. In terms of technique, althoughthe unusual, swirling brushwork used torender Praxedis's red

Vermeer. H. Kühn, ‘A Study of the Pigments and Grounds Used by Jan Vermeer’, in Studies in the History of Art 2, Washington, 1972, pp. 154-202. D. Hannema, ‘Nieuws over Johannes Vermeer van Delft’, Enkele mededelingen ‘Stichting Hannema-de Steurs Fundatie, 1974-5, p. 22 illustrated, p. 30. A. Bl