Reconsidering Vermeer’s Perfectionism
What can we learn by examining Vermeer's paintings?
Painted almost entirely in tones of golden, mustard, and pale yellows, a young woman is shown from the lap up having turned to face us while making lace on a wooden frame in this vertical portrait painting. Her body faces our left almost in profile, but she turns her face to look at us with large, hazel-gray eyes. Her skin has a yellow cast but her smooth cheeks are lightly flushed, and her coral-red lips are parted. Her cinnamon-brown hair is parted down the middle and pulled back under a slate-blue ribbon, and she wears a teardrop-shaped earring in the ear we can see. Her burnt-orange shirt has pale yellow, wide cuffs at the elbow-length sleeves and a wide collar that rests across her chest and shoulders. The cuffs and collar are textured, suggesting fur. She rests her bare forearms against the wood frame in front of her, to our left, which is about the height of a table. A parchment-yellow cloth is draped over the frame, and she holds two short, cylindrical bobbins in her hands. Two more thread-wrapped bobbins hang to one side. The woman’s tea-brown skirt is partially hidden by a table situated closer to us, in the lower right corner of the painting. The table is covered with a patterned rug in maroon red, black, and gold. On the table are a low, wide pewter-gray bowl and a dark indigo-blue pillow with gold tassels and gold stripes near the seams. The wall behind the woman is honey yellow.
Imitator of Johannes Vermeer
oil on canvas
overall: 44.5 x 40 cm (17 1/2 x 15 3/4 in.)
framed: 67.3 x 61.9 x 9.5 cm (26 1/2 x 24 3/8 x 3 3/4 in.)
This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .
Captain Harold R. Wright, London and Bremen, Germany; sold August 1927 to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris); sold November 1927 to Andrew W. Mellon [1855-1937], Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.; deeded 30 March 1932 to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1937 to NGA.
 Wright’s connection to the painting is discussed by Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. ("The Story of Two Vermeer Forgeries." In Shop Talk: Studies in Honor of Seymour Slive, Presented on His Seventy-fifth Birthday. Cambridge, Mass., 1995: 271, 273-275), and explored in depth by Jonathan Lopez in his book (The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren, New York, 2008: 3-5, 22-86, 101-111, 261 n., 262 n., 265 n., 267 n., 268 n.), his article (“The Early Vermeers of Han van Meegeren,” Apollo (July-August 2008): 22-29), and his e-mail of 7 November 2015 to Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., copy in NGA curatorial files.
 Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Getty Research Institute, Research Library, Los Angeles: reel 155, box 300, folder 3; copies in NGA curatorial files. According to Edward Grasman, "Vitale Bloch: the early years," RKD Bulletin 2010/2: 5, Bloch was also involved in this sale on behalf of the Rothmann gallery in Berlin.