Ivory, Apes and Peacocks

by James Huneker

In Austria-Hungary there are two noble Vermeers; one in the private gallery of Count Czernin, the portrait of the painter, the other in the Museum of Budapest, the portrait of a woman, the latter as solidly modelled as any Hals I ever viewed. The Czernin Vermeer is the only one in Vienna (the other Vermeer in this gallery is by Renèsse). It is a masterpiece. In it he grazes perfection.

The United States is, considering the brevity of the list, well off in Vermeers. There is at Philadelphia the Mandoliniste of John G. Johnson (without doubt, as M. Vanzype points out, the Young Woman Playing the Guitar of the 1696 sale). At Boston Mrs. John Gardner owns The Concert. At the Metropolitan Museum there is the Woman with the Jug (Marquand); and the Morgan Letter Writer; H. C. Frick boasts The Singing Lesson (probably known at the 1696 sale as A Gentleman and Young Lady Making Music).

So the importance of the 1696 catalogue is indisputable. And now, after wading through this dry forest of figures and dates and haphazard or dogmatic attributions, we are at the fatal number, thirty-four—only thirty-four authentic Vermeers in existence. Some one must be mistaken. Who owns the thirty-fifth Vermeer? I again ask.

II

The works attributed only to our master in the list compiled by M. Vanzype are but six: Portrait of a Man, at the Brussels Museum; View of Delft, in the collection of Michel Van Gelder, at Uccle, Brussels; The Lesson, at the National Gallery, London; the Sleeping Servant, Widener collection, Philadelphia—another version, according to Bürger-Thoré; Portrait of a Young Man, in the same collection; two interiors, collection Werner Dahl at Düsseldorf and collection Matavansky at Vienna, respectively. There is also to be accounted a small landscape in the Dresden gallery, a Distant View of Haarlem (probably by Vermeer of Haarlem), the Morgan and the Widener Vermeers. To deny the authenticity of either of these compositions would be to fly into the face of Vermeer himself. I have enjoyed the privilege and pleasure of viewing the Widener Vermeers, and I believe that the Sleeping Servant—she may not be intoxicated, a jug on the table being the only evidence; certainly her features are placid enough; besides, Vermeer did not indulge in paintings of low life as did Teniers, Ostrade, or Jan Steen—is about the same period as The Merry Company, in the Dresden gallery, that is, if paint, texture, and arrangement of still-life be any criterion. As for the Woman Weighing Gold, it is superb Vermeer.

There is little danger nowadays of any other painter being saddled with the name of Vermeer. It is usually the other way around, as we have seen. As was the case with Diaz and Monticelli, so has it been with Vermeer and De Hooch, Vermeer and Terburg (or Ter Borch). I have the highest admiration for the vivacious and veracious work of these two other men—possibly associates of Vermeer. Their surfaces are impeccably rendered. The woman playing a bass viol in the Berlin gallery and a certain interior in the National Gallery display the art of representation raised to the highest pitch; realism can go no further.

The psychology of a painter's household is revealed in the Count Czernin example (l'Atelier du Peintre). An artist sits with his back to us and on his canvas he broiders the image of his good wife. Again the miracle is repeated, "Let there be light!" Here is not only the subtle equilibrium between man and the things that surround him, but the things themselves—flesh-tints, drapery, garbs, polished floor, chairs, table, and wall tapestry—are saturated with light; absorbed by the inert matter which nevertheless vibrates and, like the flesh-tones, remains puissant and individual.

Humanity is the central and sounding note of his art. He is neither a pantheist in his worship of sunshine, nor is he a mystic in his pursuit of shadows. He is always virile, always tender, never trivial, nor coarse—an aristocrat of art.

In the Dresden Merry Company, and a large canvas it is—he comes to grips with Rembrandt in the matter of the distribution of lights and shades. The cavalier at the left of the picture—facing it—with the cynical smile, is marvellously depicted. There is a certain shadow on his wide-margined collar which also touches the lower part of his face—but now we are nearing the region of transcendental virtuosity. I always convince myself when in the presence of the other Dresden Vermeer, and the greater of the two, that this young Dutch lady reading a letter at an open window is my favourite.

And now it's high time to answer my question: Who owns the thirty-fifth Vermeer? We stopped, you may recall, at the thirty-fourth, The Singing Lesson, belonging to Mr. Frick. That would give the thirty-fifth to the Portrait of a Man in the Brussels Museum. But that is a contested canvas, while the Lesson in the National Gallery (not the young woman at her clavecin, a genuine Vermeer) is also doubtful, say the experts.