Andrew Graham-Dixon, acclaimed Caravaggio biographer, has recently published a book titled Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found and, while I am still in its early stages, I found some enlightening revelations. I report on these early findings in this post.
Graham-Dixon's research has shown that a significant portion of Vermeer's work was done for one family; and ownership of those works stayed within the family until the death of the last member and a subsequent auction.
Six years after Vermeer's death, a married woman named Magdalene Peters van Ruijven also died. She was 27 years old at the time of her death and had only been married for 2 years to her surviving spouse Jacob Dissus. Magdalene had been the daughter of a heir (her father) to a brewing fortune and a mother who hailed from a wealthy Delft family. Both of her parents preceded her in death and she had inherited their possessions, a part of which was a collection of paintings.
Magdalene's will bequeathed her assets to her spouse and the Delft city records still show the enumeration of those assets. According to the Recorder, a total of 20 Vermeer paintings were passed from Magdalene to her husband; 2/3 of Vermeer's known production. According to Graham-Clark, this list had been discovered and published by John Michael Montias 30 years ago.
Following Magdalene's death, Jacob, for one reason or another, was obligated to share her estate with his father; inclusive of six Vermeers. It is not clear under what circumstances Dissus regained, or retained, ownership of those paintings but all 20 were found in his print shop upon his death in 1695. His paintings were sold at auction in Amsterdam subsequent to his death.
The Delft recorder had not assigned names to any of the paintings but the Amsterdam auctioneer did (as shown below). Two of the paintings are unknown and are presumed lost.
Graham-Dixon sees this collection as unique in a number of ways. First, it was built around the works of a single painter. Vermeer had begun working for the Van Ruijven's about 1657 -- while he was in his mid-20s -- and, for the next 13 years, painted almost exclusively for them. At the end of this period he more or less gave up painting. Graham-Dixon noted that this was unusual in the "annals of patron-artist relationships."
The collection was fuirther unique in the way that the family cherished and preserved the holdings. Graham-Dixon asserts that Vermeer's lack of visibility in the art world was due to this fact. He had done most of his work for them and they held it tightly to their collective chests.
One of the paintings included in the auction was unnamed, but due to the description, Graham-Dixon contends that it "can be plausibly identified as The Art of Painting." If that is the case, it would have been purchased subsequent to Vermeer's death as he had retained control of it during his lifetime and, further, it was inherited by his widow post his death. It had been sold by the Administrator against her will. If bought by the van Ruijvens, it would have been the daughter, or the Mom, making the purchase as the Dad had died by this time. To round out the possibilities, the painting described in the listing could have been a second version of The Art of Painting (now lost) or could have been a different painting altogether (also lost).
A total of 20 Vermeers had been recorded at the time of Magdalene's death yet 21 of his works were offered at the auction. Graham-Dixon offers two alternatives: (i) Dissus bought another Vermeer between 1683 and 1695 or (ii) the Recorder failed to identify one of the other paintings in the inherited assets as a Vermeer.
The third unique bit about this collection was that it (i) amounted to 2/3 of Vermeer's total production and (ii) contained almsot all of the paintings on which his modern reputation has been built. The figure below captures the Vermeer works that were not included in the auction and categorizes them according to Graham-Dixon's characterization.
According to Graham-Dixon, the two genre paintings, on the basis of the same coat of arms appearing in a stained-glass window in each of them, seem to have been commissioned by the same family. He added The Love Letter to the genre category because it "follows the convention of Dutch genre painting in a straightforward way." It is not known who purchased this piece originally.
The Astronomer and The Greographer were commissioned by a director of the Dutch East India Company. Allegory of the Catholic Faith was commissioned by an Amsterdam Burgher.
As shown in the figure above, seven Vermeer-typical paintings were created for non-Ruijven patron(s). With the exception of Young Woman with a Water Pitcher, it is unclear who commissioned these paintings.
To Graham-Dixon it is clear that "with few exceptions, Vermeer created his most distinctive and memorable pictures for the Ruijven family."
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