Vermeer restoration unveiled with revealed Cupid

Vermeer restoration unveiled with revealed Cupid
Vermeer restoration unveiled with revealed Cupid

Johannes Vermeer, the remarkable 17th century painter from the city of Delft in the Netherlands, is revered for his transcendent portrayals of the effects of light and atmosphere in domestic scenes.

He is best known for his series of compositions in which people, predominantly young women, are seen engaged in simple activities in front of a window — always to the viewer’s left. These make up the majority of Vermeer’s oeuvre, and consist of many variations on the theme.

The painting known as Girl Reading a Letter at a Window, which has been a centerpiece of the collection of the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden for over 250 years, is recognized as the first of these.

It has been known since 1979, when an X-ray analysis was made of the painting, that Vermeer had placed a painting within a painting of a large portrayal of Cupid on the wall behind the figure. It was assumed that Vermeer had thought better of his compositional choice and painted over the image of the painting.

However, a restoration was undertaken in May of 2017, in which it was determined by materials analysis that the overpainting of the blank wall had, in fact, been added by another hand after the time of Vermeer’s death.

Given that knowledge, the conservators began to remove the third-hand paint-over, including painted over extensions of the composition at the edges of the canvas, which Vermeer had left blank, perhaps in anticipation of mounting the work in a particular frame.

Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister has now unveiled the restoration, which will be the center of a new exhibition, Johannes Vermeer. On Reflection, that will be on display from 10/9/2021 to 2/1/2022.

The restoration reveals the detailed, large scale painting of Cupid, similar to the painting within a painting of Vermeer’s later work, Lady Standing at a Virginal.

This page on the website of the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister goes into the restoration of the painting at a time when the process was about half way completed.

The Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister has not yet released a high resolution image of the restored painting, so I’m including images of the pre-restoration version — that are available in high resolution on the Google Art Project and Wikipedia — in which you can see a shadowy pentimento of the covered painting.

You can see the pre-restoration version in context, both by date and in size comparison to Vermeer’s other works in this fascinating comparison on the fantastic Essential Vermeer website. (See my post on Essential Vermeer.)

[Via Colossal and Kottke, thanks to Erlc Lee Smith for the suggestion]

 
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Eye Candy for Today: luminous Howard Pyle painting

Why seek ye the living in a place of the dead?, Howard Pyle, illustration
Why seek ye the living in a place of the dead?, Howard Pyle, illustration (details)

Why seek ye the living in a place of the dead?, Howard Pyle

Source for this version of the image is Fleurdulys Tumblr (large image here); original is in the Kelly Collection of American Illustration Art.

This was an illustration for the April 15, 1905 Easter themed issue of Colliers. Whether it accompanied a particular article or story, I don’t know. It was not the cover, as that was done by Maxfield Parrish.

Pyle has controlled the values brilliantly here (in both senses of the word).

 
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James Patterson

James Patterson, Scottish artist
James Patterson, Scottish artist

Scottish artist James Patterson, who was active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was known for his atmospheric landscapes, concise insightful portraits and tactile still life subjects.

Patterson studied at the Glasgow School of Art and also in Paris. He was adept at painting with both watercolor and oil.

The best online representation of his work is to be found on the website of the National Galleries of Scotland. There, in addition to paintings, you will find many portrait studies in black and red chalk.

 
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Eye Candy for Today: J.C. Leyendecker’s Rowers

Rowers, SEP cover, J.C. Leyendecker
Rowers, SEP cover, J.C. Leyendecker (detail)

Another great Saturday Evening Post cover by the inimitable American Illustrator, J.C. Leyendecker.

As usual, Leyendecker is walking a line between naturalistic representation of anatomy, cloth and other objects, and stylistic touches.

In this image, I note the small streaks of light across areas of the arms legs and clothing of the figures, as well as on parts of the shell. These don’t actually make sense in terms of light being filtered by something above the figures, they’re just a stylistic invention that Leyendecker employs across many of his paintings, a little bit of extra visual appeal.

Image via A Little Bit of J.C. Leyendecker Greatness (see my post here).

 
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Cathy Hillegas

Cathy Hillegas watercolors
Cathy Hillegas watercolors

Cathy Hillegas is a painter in watercolor based in Indiana, who combines vibrant color with a tactile sense of texture in her paintings of flowers, trees, woods and fields.

Particularly appealing to me are her paintings of small natural elements, leaves, branches, the heads of ferns and other aspects of nature, seen up close.

In addition to the works on her website, you can find prints available in her Etsy store.

 
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