Another early example, betraying the same influence, is Diana at Her Toilet of the Hague Gallery, which in the 1905 edition of the Catalogue is still assigned to Vermeer of Utrecht, though later criticism accepts it as by the artist of Delft. Closely following in subject a Diana and Her Nymphs, painted by Jacob van Loo in 1648, which is now in the Berlin Gallery, this picture is in the freer, looser method of The Proposal, and even repeats the same colors of red and yellow, though subtilized here to a delicate rose and a kind of snuff color. The light is still partially distributed so as to dapple the figures, and these are painted with a flickering brushstroke that helps to increase the fluttering effect of the light.
Two other examples have been acquired in recent years by the Hague Gallery: an allegorical picture, The New Testament, and Head of a Girl. In both are introduced the cool blue and white that characterize many of Vermeer’s later pictures. The subject of the former, which is owned by Dr. Bredius of The Hague, is curiously affected, representing a lady in blue and white silk costume, resting her foot on a globe, as she sits beside a table on which are a crucifix, chalice, and book. On the wall behind her hangs a large picture of Christ upon the cross, attended by Mary and John; and on the left of it is a superb tapestry of orange, blue, and mellow green, while a crystal ball is suspended from the ceiling. In contrast with the glowing warmth of the curtain and the shadowed warmth of the picture on the wall, the lady’s figure presents a cool, white-lighted spot. The plastic feeling is strongly pronounced, the brushwork wonderfully limpid and firm, and the tonality extraordinarily fine. For the picture is still a study of tone, in which it differs from the Head of a Girl. For the latter is represented in a clearly diffused light, which is brightest around the head, and illumines in a subtle way the tender flesh-tints of the face, the bluish-white linen head-dress, and the bright full blue of a portion of the gown. The face wears a charming expression of concentration. This picture, indeed, very decidedly forecasts Vermeer’s developed individuality, yet Bode places it among his earlier pieces, about 1656. To this period also probably belongs the beautiful Sleeping Girl, recently acquired from the Rudolph Kann Collection by Mr. B. Altman.
To a somewhat later date following close on 1656 Bode assigns the View of Delft, one of the greatest treasures of the Hague Gallery. There is a record of its sale in 1696, together with two other landscapes, one of which has disappeared, while the other is in the Six Collection in Amsterdam. The Hague picture is an unusual example of the artist, not only because it is a landscape, but also because of the warm light that pervades it. From a triangle of rosy yellowish foreground one looks across the quiet sheet of grayish-blue water to the line of houses of reddish-drab and brown bricks, and red and blue and yellow roofs, above which shows a high expanse of sky. The coloring, which again, it is to be observed, includes red and yellow, is brilliantly variegated, yet held in control by the stretches of sky and water. The ensemble is superbly artistic, while as a presentation of a late afternoon scene it could not be surpassed in naturalness. The picture, in fact, stands out among all the landscapes of the seventeenth century as being extraordinarily modern in feeling and manner, and its influence has been very great in the modern development of landscape-painting in Holland.
Another picture of the period immediately following 1656 is The Cook, in the Rijks Museum. She is standing in front of a whitish wall, lighted from a window on the left, pouring milk into a red earthenware pitcher that stands upon the table. The latter hides the lower part of her figure, which is clad in a lemon-colored body, reddish-brown skirt, and deep-blue apron, while a white cap covers her head. Here in these details—cap against light wall, prominent note of blue, the three-quarter length of figure, the cool lighting from a window on the left, lastly, the plasticity of the form—we find the ingredients of Vermeer’s later manner; but as yet the brushwork has not the limpid exquisiteness, compressed yet fluent, of his full development. On the contrary, it is broad, inclined to roughness, loose and free, magnificent in the gusto with which it has been applied, and vigorously stimulating in its appeal to sense imagination.
Also in the Rijks Museum is a picture which recalls the fact that De Hooch was a member of the Guild of St. Luke in Delft from 1655 to 1657, and that, while he benefited most by contact with Vermeer, the latter was also somewhat influenced by him. For in this picture, The Letter, Vermeer seems to have experimented, not over-successfully, with De Hooch’s device of showing one room beyond another. For an anteroom opens into two others, side by side, in one of which on the black and white marble floor a lady is seated in an amber dress trimmed with ermine. She pauses in her playing of a lute to take a letter from a servant. The picture is exceedingly choice in color and technique, but the composition is a little awkward in its division into two parts—a device, by the way, that recalls De Hooch’s The Visit, owned by Mrs. Henry O. Havemeyer, the composition of which is open to a similar criticism.
Again, in the Rijks Museum is Young Woman Reading a Letter. Here in the delicate modeling of the face one observes the exquisite gray tones that distinguish so many of the examples of Vermeer’s fully developed style. Also notable is the arrangement of the composition, the girl facing left, her feet hidden by a chair and table, the latter forming a dark spot so as to increase the luminosity on the figure and the wall. It is repeated very closely in The Lady with a Pearl Necklace of the Berlin Gallery, where chair and table occupy the same
THE COOK JOHANNES (JAN) VERMEER
SIX COLLECTION NOW IN RIJKS MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM