Researchers believe that Girl with flute Vermeer could not draw because it lacked his precision and application of paint.
National Art Gallery
hide captions
switch captions
National Art Gallery
Researchers believe that Girl with flute Vermeer could not draw because it lacked his precision and application of paint.
National Art Gallery
Hailed as a lone genius, Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer is now said to have had an associate – be it assistant or student – who painted one of his most iconic works. he.
The discovery was made by a team of curators, conservationists, and scientists from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The picture mentioned, Girl with flutealong with his authenticated works for comparison, is being viewed at the museum in a new exhibition called Vermeer’s Secret.
“It fundamentally changed our understanding of Vermeer,” said Kaywin Feldman, Director of the National Gallery of Art. Press Release.
Vermeer is known for capturing the subtle beauty of Dutch domestic life in mid 17th century. He is most widely known for Girl with pearl earringswas Is called “The Dutch Mona Lisa”.
For a long time, scholars believed that Vermeer worked alone. There are no records of students registered by the association in Vermeer’s hometown and no mention of assistants to visitors to his studio.
But over the past two years, researchers have taken advantage of the museum’s COVID-related closures to take a closer look at Vermeer’s artwork.
That’s when the team concluded that Girl with flute Vermeer was not able to do so because the painting lacked the precision and application of paint characteristic of the artist.
This discovery is partly shocking as there are only about 35 known paintings of Vermeer.
