While taking inventory for a property sale in Yorkshire, England, two agents came across an amazing collection of canine-inspired oil paintings by Johannes Vermeer. Removal of David Hockney from ‘canine art’ pedestal, agents discovered 243 oil paintings of dogs as subjects of the separate storage unit which has remained untouched for decades on the property of a castle in the town of Hawes. This incredible discovery explains why it was thought that there were so few works by Vermeer, since only 35 paintings were previously attributed to the artist.
Art restorers from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam confirmed that all the paintings were by the Dutch painter after carrying out material tests and analyzing the signatures on the reverse. In an interview with Hyperallergicone of the estate sales agents said they were still “breathless” from the discovery after the paintings were attributed to Vermeer.
“We didn’t think it was pawssible – ehm, possible, to uncover a treasure like this,” they said. “In a small village and with the garage having not been touched for years, we expected to sift through the rubbish no one wanted and throw it all in the dumpster.”
As Rijksmuseum restorers work meticulously to restore paintings that have been kept in dark and damp conditions for decades, they have provided Hyperallergic with images of several paintings in the collection. One represents a small white dog sleeping next to a green glass bottle, probably dated between 1670 and 1672. Another, which depicts a hunting dog wearing a pearl earring, it is believed to be related to Vermeer’s most famous work, “The Girl with the Pearl Earring” (1665), a painting which experts say was only a rough study of the canine masterpiece.
Art historians now believe that Vermeer’s true aspiration was to become a famous dog portrait painter, and that his masterful understanding of light and expert rendering of intimate domestic interiors were “just a side hustle”, said Delft-based Vermeer specialist Aletta van der Poedel.
“There have been dogs in his paintings before – of course,” said van der Poedel Hyperallergic as the world tries to make sense of these works. “Diana and her companions” (circa 1653) shows a hunting dog with its back to the viewer, and van der Poedel also referred to the x-ray image from Vermeer’s “A Maid Asleep” (1657) which shows a dog in the doorway which the painter eventually chose to cover.
“But dogs never appeared as main subjects in Vermeer’s paintings until now, I guess,” van der Poedel continued. “Perhaps he was drawn to the soft quality and color contrast of the fur. He may have wanted to draw more attention to canine domesticity by showcasing this gentleness.
The discovery coincides with the largest ever Vermeer retrospective at the Rijksmuseum, which has been so popular that resale tickets are selling in the hundreds, if not thousands. A curator at the Amsterdam institution confessed she was relieved the discovery was made after the works for the exhibition had been selected, as “God only knows what the lines would be like if people had known that Vermeer was a canine painter”.
