A Young Woman Standing at a Virginal

The textual material contained in the Essential Vermeer Interactive Catalogue would fill a hefty-sized book, and is enhanced by more than 1,000 corollary images. In order to use the catalogue most advantageously: 1. Scroll your mouse over the painting to a point of particular interest. Relative information and images will slide into the box located to the right of the painting. To fix and scroll the slide-in information, single click on area of interest. To release the slide-in information, single-click the "dismiss" buttton and continue exploring. 2. To access Special Topics and Fact Sheet information and accessory images, single-click any list item. To release slide-in information, click on any list item and continue exploring. While many Dutch painters delighted in depicting bits and pieces of city life outside the windows of their interior scenes, Vermeer avoids alluding to the world outside his carefully assembled mise-en-scène . This must have been a deliberate choice since even though his studio was above street level, some sort of architectural element would have been visible. A Vermeer writer wrote that the artist permits us to see on the opened lid of the virginal what we cannot see through the closed window. In fact, the size and shape of the window's lower casement reflect those of the lid. Moreover, the gradation of pale green to light lemon-yellow of the window—created with shades of green earth and lead-tin yellow—, which is far more apparent when viewing the original painting, recalls the color scheme of the landscape. Vermeer may have intended some sort of visual pun, perhaps the echo of color and music, to reinforce the painting's theme. The intricately carved French frame is the only object in the scene that does not overlap with any other, giving it a life of its own, almost independent from its surroundings. Vermeer may have chosen such a glittering frame in order to contrast with the somber black geometry of the Cupid's ebony frame. The conventional-looking landscape has been associated by art historian Gregor Weber with a Mountain Landscape with Travelers by the Delft artist Pieter Groenewegen, a friend of Vermeer's father with whom Vermeer must have been acquainted. If Vermeer did indeed base his picture-within-a-picture landscape on Groenewegen's work, he adapted it to his needs. One can see that only the right half of Groenewegen's composition was utilized so it would fit into the gilt frame. Billowing clouds were added, perhaps, to echo the clouds of the virginal's landscape and the puffy silk sleeves of the standing musician. The castle which silhouettes against the sky was removed. Surprisingly, a stylized version of Groenewegen's landscape appears again in full on the lid of the virginal. Until recently, experts had largely written off the landscape pictures-within-pictures in Vermeer's interiors as decorative fillers with no significant iconographic connection to the scenes which unfolded beneath them. However, art historian Elise Goodman submits that like versifiers and composers of the 17th century, Vermeer utilized his framed landscapes to nuance the story of the figures. The idea that woman was a "masterpiece of nature to be admired, possessed and displayed appeared in countless poems, songs and tracts on beautiful women in 17th-century Europe." What seems at first glance to be a patient rendering of a gold frame is, on close observation, a series of quickly applied dots and dabs of thick light yellow paint which appear to dance upon a deeper ocher-toned base. Vermeer expert Walter Liedtke likened the rendering of the frame to "the lady's rhythmic curls, pearls, ribbons and the lace trim on her sleeve (its billowing combination of blue and white is echoed in the landscape's sky)." One might also envisage a gay musicality, perhaps not distant from the crisp staccato effect produced by the music of virginal. Dutch art historian Eddy de Jongh was the first to point out that the ebony-fr