Skip to Main Content
Home>Exhibitions>Past>2022>Vermeer's Secrets

Vermeer’s Secrets

Past Exhibition

October 8, 2022 – January 8, 2023
West Building, Ground Floor, Galleries G33–⁠G34

Only about 35 paintings by Johannes Vermeer are known today. The National Gallery owns four works by or attributed to this beloved 17th-century Dutch artist: Woman Holding a Balance, A Lady Writing, Girl with the Red Hat, and Girl with a Flute.

For decades, conservators, scientists, and curators at the National Gallery have conducted research into this quartet of paintings as well as two enigmatic works that are now considered to be 20th-century forgeries. Vermeer’s Secrets draws on 50 years of imaging technology and microscopic examination to illuminate—and sometimes revolutionize—our understanding of how Vermeer achieved the compelling effects of his paintings’ light-filled moments of quiet solitude.

In this behind-the-scenes glimpse, we reveal our findings about these paintings and the artist who made them. We want to share those secrets with you.

Works on View

In this vertical painting, a woman stands near the corner of a dimly lit room, facing our left in profile and looking down at a balance she holds suspended in her right hand over a wooden table. She wears a peacock-blue velvet jacket with a white hood and fur lining, and a voluminous, mustard-yellow skirt. A window near the upper left corner is partially covered by a canary-yellow curtain. Light coming in through that window falls on the pale skin of the woman's face and hands, and highlights the white trim of her garment. Her left hand, closer to us, rests on the edge of the table near two open boxes, and a blue cloth is bunched at the back of the table to our left. Gold chains and pearl strands drape over the edge of one box. The woman stands in front of a framed painting. Much of the detail is lost in shadow but at the top center of the painting, a person surrounded by a golden halo floats in the sky with both arms raised, and is flanked by people encased within a bank of clouds. Nude people on the ground below in the painting, seen to either side of the woman, writhe, twist, and point upward.
Vermeer's Secrets

Johannes Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance, c. 1664, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.97
Shown from about the knees up, a pale, smooth-skinned woman in a fur-lined yellow jacket looks out at us as she sits writing at a table in this vertical painting. The woman’s body faces the table to our left. She turns her head to gaze at us from the corners of her dark gray eyes under faint brows. She has a wide nose, and her pale lips are closed. Her light brown hair is pulled back and held in place with white bows, and gleaming teardrop-shaped pearl earrings dangle from her ears. Her lemon-yellow jacket is trimmed with ermine fur, which is white with black speckles, at the cuffs and down the front opening. A full, elephant-gray skirt falls to the floor beneath the jacket. Both hands rest on the table, and she holds a quill in her right hand, farther from us, on a piece of paper. She leans forward in her wooden chair. The back panel of the chair is covered in black fabric and lined with brass studs. Two gilded finials, carved into lions’ heads, face the woman’s back with mouths open. The table is covered with a celestial-blue cloth crumpled near the left edge of the canvas. On the table are a strand of pearls, a pale yellow ribbon, and a black box with three brown panels studded with pearls around silver keyholes. Two pewter gray vessels are visible just beyond it, in front of a second chair, which faces us. On the putty-gray wall behind the woman, a framed painting hangs in the upper left quadrant of the composition. The painting-within-the painting is done in muted tones of brown and shows a cello and other unidentifiable objects.
Vermeer's Secrets

Johannes Vermeer, A Lady Writing, c. 1665, oil on canvas, Gift of Harry Waldron Havemeyer and Horace Havemeyer, Jr., in memory of their father, Horace Havemeyer, 1962.10.1
Shown from the elbows up, a young person with pale skin and brown hair wearing a wide, scarlet-red hat sits in front of a tapestry in this vertical portrait painting. She sits with her body facing our right in profile but she turns her face to look at or toward us with dark eyes. She has a rounded nose, rather flat cheeks, and a sliver of teeth is visible through parted coral-pink lips. The wide brim of the red hat seems to be made of a soft, almost feathery material, and it casts a shadow across her face. She wears a high-collared white garment that catches the light, a royal-blue, possibly velvet, robe or overcoat, and large, teardrop pearl earrings. Her arm runs along the bottom edge of the panel in front of two carved, wooden lion finials that could be the arm or back of the chair. The tapestry behind her is painted in tones of pale caramel brown and pine green. The painting has a soft, hazy look, and light glints with bright white specks off the pearl earrings, the tip of her nose, her lips, and the lion finials.
Vermeer's Secrets

Johannes Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, c. 1669, oil on panel, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.53
Shown from the waist up, a young woman sits on the other side of the edge of a table, leaning toward us on one elbow in this vertical painting. She looks at us with dark brown eyes under faint, arched brows. She has pale skin with flushed cheeks, a long, rounded nose, and her ruby-red lips are parted. Her brown hair is tucked into a wide, conical hat with gray, pale yellow, and ash-brown vertical stripes. Light falls across her face from our right, so the hat casts a shadow over her eyes and on the far cheek, to our left. Light glints off of two teardrop-shaped pearl earrings. Her muted blue bodice has a few touches of topaz and sky blue create a brocade-like floral pattern. The bodice is trimmed with a wide band of white fur down the front and around the cuffs, which come down just beyond her elbows. A white kerchief tucked into the bodice covers her shoulders. She leans onto her left forearm, to our right, and that arm is close and parallel to the bottom edge of the composition. In that hand she holds a golden flute like a pencil, and her other hand rests against the edge of the table. She leans to our right so we can see the gold lion's head finial at the top of her wooden chair. The area behind her is painted with patches of harvest yellow, fawn brown, muted brick red, and parchment white to create a loosely patterned drapery that fills the background.
Vermeer's Secrets

Dutch 17th Century, Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Flute, c. 1669/1675, oil on panel, Widener Collection, 1942.9.98
Vermeer's Secrets

Anonymous Artist, Johannes Vermeer, The Smiling Girl, c. 1925, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.55
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.
Vermeer's Secrets

Anonymous Artist, Johannes Vermeer, The Lacemaker, c. 1925, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.54

Explore & Share

Organization
Organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington

The exhibition is curated by Betsy Wieseman, curator and head, and Alexandra Libby, associate curator, department of Northern European painting, National Gallery of Art.

Conservation research and technical imaging at the National Gallery were provided by Dina Anchin, associate paintings conservator; John K. Delaney, senior imaging scientist; Kathryn A. Dooley, imaging scientist; E. Melanie Gifford, conservation scientist (retired); and Lisha Deming Glinsman, conservation scientist (retired).

 

Passes
Visitors may be required to join a virtual line upon arrival. Sign up at the exhibition entrance or any information desk and explore the museum while you wait. Groups are limited to six people.

 

Banner detail: Johannes Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat, c. 1666/1667, oil on panel, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.53