Do you remember me? Not a lady seated at a virginal but a procuress in that picture on the wall! This picture in the painting, The Procuress painted by Van Baburen (lower right), belonged to Vermeer's mother-in-law and appears in Vermeer's paintings twice (eg. lower left). The original procuress is in yellow, Judas' yellow, the color of betrayal(lower right). (In China, the yellow is the emperor's colour!) A woman playing the lute in front of me is a prostitute. The stripe used to be a symbol of the misfit. Vermeer painted his own Procuress in the third year of his marriage(It came to Japan in 2019, below large figure).
Vermeer painted Lady Seated at a Virginal in his forties, which might have been his last work. Snowdrop, do you think his silent swan song is disturbed by the picture in the painting, a noisy image of Procuress ? Though you were standing in front of this painting for more than one hour in London, you did not observe anything! Did you compare it with another painting, Lady Standing at a Virginal, which was hung next to it?
While Lady Standing at a Virginal expresses the daylight, Lady Seated at a Virginal the darkness of the night ― the window is painted black and a blue curtain is closed.
The night is the time for the profane love. The name of an instrument, "virginal" comes from "virgin", and another "viola da gamba" means "leg viole".
The colours of these ladies' clothes are blue and yellow, the same colour combination of the prostitute and procuress by Baburen! Or did Vermeer's poor wardrobe force him to paint the same dress again and again?
The music comes and goes between the sacred and the profane like that of Notre-Dame school. This painting admonishes the profane love by depicting the instruments, which is confirmed by me, the procuress in the picture on the wall! Do you find snowdrop an ”over-interpreter”? She has something to tell you while Lady Seated at a Virginal is being exhibited in Tokyo and Osaka.
(「ロンドンで見たフェルメール」へつづく)
(To be continued to "Vermeer Seen in London")
📚 参考文献
デルフトの雲へいのちを吸はれしか黄色い壁を凝視する画家
was the life
of the painter
who was gazing at the yellow wall
absorbed in the clouds of Delft
painted by Vermeer?
黄色い壁 (google search)
Est-ce que la vie du peintre qui regardait un petit pan de mur jaune absorbé au ciel de Delft?
記事中の図版は『フェルメール』(中央公論社)(同朋社)を撮影
2019年に初来日したフェルメール「取り持ち女」については、こちら↓
おまけ ♪ 今日は、ベートーヴェン・イヤーの賢治忌
チェロは一見ヴィオラ・ダ・ガンバと似ていますが、違う楽器だそうです。
Bonus on Kenji's death anniversary in Beethoven year 2020. The Cello is an instrument different from the viola da gamba.