For centuries, art lovers have wondered about the identity of the models for Vermeer’s beloved masterpieces. To the astonishment of many academics, one expert has suggested that girl in red hat (circa 1669) could in fact be a self-portrait of Maria, the artist’s daughter. Additionally, she may be responsible for many of the Dutch master’s best-known works, according to a new report by author Lawrence Weschler in THE Atlantic.
These claims were first published in the controversial 2008 book by art historian Benjamin Binstock Vermeer’s family secrets. The theory was dismissed out of hand by mainstream Vermeer scholars, but with the recent discovery that Vermeer girl with a flute (c. 1669/1675) in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. may in fact be the work of an unidentified apprenticesome scholars are beginning to reconsider the facts.
Often intentionally provocative in his writing style, Binstock gained a reputation for taking an old-fashioned, scholarly approach to art history, openly questioning long-accepted attributions by reevaluating the style of works against what we know of the life of the artist. Unsurprisingly, efforts like these have tended to agitate the establishment and push Binstock to the fringes of mainstream academia.
By first attempting to identify the various patterns that reappear in Vermeer’s works, and in doing so slightly rearranging their sequence (most of Vermeer’s works have a wide range of possible dates), Binstock believed he had put in light of new inconsistencies in both chronology and style. especially towards the end of Vermeer’s life. While these unexamined claims remained speculation, Binstock felt comfortable stating them as fact.
Girl with a Pearl Earring, 1664-1667, oil on canvas. Mauritshuis, The Hague. Bequest of Arnoldus Andries des Tombe, The Hague.
Born in 1632, Vermeer had his first daughter Maria in 1654. According to Binstock, she replaced his wife Catharina as the primary model about a decade later, beginning with Woman with pearl necklace (c. 1666) and eventually featured as the subject of A girl with an earring (1670). These dates, and most of the others given by Binstock in this article, are the subject of debate among scholars.
During the 1670s, Binstock’s account deviates considerably from the accepted chronology, with his assertion that Maria also began working as her father’s assistant and studying his methods. He named the two girl with a flute And Girl with a red hat like Maria’s early self-portraits due to their more clumsy and amateurish style as much as their compositions. Neither painting has a fixed date, and Binstock opted for 1672 to align with Maria’s late teens.
The researcher has also attributed works like the Met’s Study of a young woman (1672) and the Frick’s Girl interrupted by her music (1673) and Mistress and housekeeper (1673) to Maria, arguing that they are a pastiche of the considerable skill shown in Vermeer’s greatest masterpieces.
Johannes Vermeer, girl with a flute, (circa 1669-1675). National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Finally, Young women seated at the virginal (1674) had at one time been disputed as a Vermeer but was not finally authenticated until it was found painted on a canvas cut from the same fabric as The Lacemaker (also 1674). Another possible explanation would be that the work was made by someone working closely with the artist and sharing both his materials and his style.
No assistant has ever been associated with Vermeer, but that assumption is now being reconsidered thanks to the National Gallery of Art’s reattribution of girl with a flute. According to Binstock, artists of the time were not required to register their children as apprentices with the painters’ guild, which may explain the lack of a surviving record. A possible reason why Maria then ceased producing paintings after her father’s death in 1675 could be her marriage in 1674, after which she left the Vermeer house.
It is highly unlikely that we will ever have a definitive answer about Maria’s possible involvement in Vermeer’s work, and the stakes of the reattribution of the paintings are high both for the holders of these priceless masterpieces and for the scholarly reputations involved. Nevertheless, while Vermeer is attracting renewed interest with a historical survey at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Binstock still hopes that his theory will finally receive serious critical attention.
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