Woman with a Lute
Encyclopedia
Woman with a Lute, also known as Woman with a Lute Near a Window, is a painting created about 1662–1663 by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer
and now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
in New York.
The painting depicts a young woman wearing an ermine-trimmed jacket and enormous pearl earrings as she eagerly looks out a window, presumably expecting a male visitor. "A musical courtship is suggested by the viola da gamba on the floor in the foreground and by the flow of songbooks across the tabletop and onto the floor," according to a web page about the work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art website. The tuning of a lute was recognized by contemporary viewers as a symbol of the virtue of temperance. The oil on canvas
work is 20¼ inches high and 18 inches wide (51.4 × 45.7 cm).
The work likely was painted shortly after than Young Woman with a Water Pitcher, and it shares with that painting its framing of the figure within rectangular motifs. But the painting has more muted tones, reflecting a shift in that direction by Vermeer in the mid- to late 1660s. At this time, Vermeer began using shadows and soft contours to further evoke an atmosphere of intimacy. "The impression of spatial recession and atmosphere is somewhat diminished by darkening with age of the objects in the foreground and by abrasion of the paint surface, mostly in the same area," according to the Metropolitan Museum of Art web page.
The painting was given to the museum in 1900 by a bequest of railroad industrialist Collis P. Huntington
.
Johannes Vermeer
Johannes, Jan or Johan Vermeer was a Dutch painter who specialized in exquisite, domestic interior scenes of middle class life. Vermeer was a moderately successful provincial genre painter in his lifetime...
and now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
in New York.
The painting depicts a young woman wearing an ermine-trimmed jacket and enormous pearl earrings as she eagerly looks out a window, presumably expecting a male visitor. "A musical courtship is suggested by the viola da gamba on the floor in the foreground and by the flow of songbooks across the tabletop and onto the floor," according to a web page about the work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art website. The tuning of a lute was recognized by contemporary viewers as a symbol of the virtue of temperance. The oil on canvas
Oil on Canvas
Oil on Canvas is a live album by the British band Japan, released in 1983 by Virgin Records. Although it is a live recording of their established material, the album also contains three new studio tracks , recorded separately by Sylvian, Sylvian/Jansen and Barbieri respectively...
work is 20¼ inches high and 18 inches wide (51.4 × 45.7 cm).
The work likely was painted shortly after than Young Woman with a Water Pitcher, and it shares with that painting its framing of the figure within rectangular motifs. But the painting has more muted tones, reflecting a shift in that direction by Vermeer in the mid- to late 1660s. At this time, Vermeer began using shadows and soft contours to further evoke an atmosphere of intimacy. "The impression of spatial recession and atmosphere is somewhat diminished by darkening with age of the objects in the foreground and by abrasion of the paint surface, mostly in the same area," according to the Metropolitan Museum of Art web page.
The painting was given to the museum in 1900 by a bequest of railroad industrialist Collis P. Huntington
Collis P. Huntington
Collis Potter Huntington was one of the Big Four of western railroading who built the Central Pacific Railroad as part of the first U.S. transcontinental railroad...
.
External links
- Web page about the painting - Metropolitan Museum of Art website
- Exhibition web page Metropolitan Museum of Art