DUTCH OLD MASTER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 April 1938, Page 7

DUTCH OLD MASTER

VERMEER PICTURE BOUGHT TO LIGHT LONG HELD IN POSSESSION OF FAMILY. ACQUIRED FOR ROTTERDAM MUSEUM. By Telegraph—Press Association. Copyright. LONDON, April 21. The "Daily Telegraph’s” Rotterdam correspondent says that, forced to sell some property, a Dutch family living in modest circumstances in Paris turned out from a linen cupboard an unframed picture which had been in the family’s possession for 260 years. Its size was thirty-six by forty-four inches and it represented Christ and His disciples.

The picture was sent to a Dutch expert, Dr Bredius, who declared it to be a fine specimen of the work of the sixteenth-century painter, Vermeer. He later found Vermeer’s signature covered by thick varnish. Three patriotic Dutchmen purchased the painting for £62,000 and presented it to the Rotterdam Museum.

Jan van der Meer, or Jan can Delft Vermeer, was born on October 31, 1632, and he became a pupil of Carel Fabritius, who was a pupil of Rembrandt and only eight years Vermeer’s senior. Those both Fabritius and his pupil had knowledge of the technique of the master painter of that time. He married Catherine Bolens in 1653; he entered the guild of St Luke of Delft, and in the years 1662 and 1670 he was one of the heads of that guild. He died where he was born and in the town in which he had worked for the forty-three years of his life — Delft.

At his death he was found to have left 26 pictures undisposed of, and his widow had to apply to the court of insolvency to be placed under a curator who was the naturalist, Leeuwenhoek. Then, for almost two centuries, the curtain drops, for Vermeer was, during that time, almost forgotten. Moreover, his pictures were sold under the names of the more popular, if less illustrious De Hooch, Metsu, and Ter Borch, and the great name of Rembrandt was also used on his work.

Recognition of his fine art really started when attention was drawn to his brilliance by an exiled Frenchman, named Thore, who gave a description of his works in “Musees de la Hollande.”

Vermeer’s authentic works in public and private collections number only about 37. and these are scattered far and wide. There. is one in the Louvre, the “Lace Maker,” in Berlin there are three, and the Czernin gallery in Vienna has a splendid picture which, it is believed, shows the artist in his studio. The Arenberg gallery at Meppen and The Hague museum possess two remarkable heads of girls, which are half life size.