A seated woman looking at a child through a window | Jacobus Vrel | 1656 | Fondation Custodia, Paris
“The subject of this work is unique in 17th-century Dutch painting. No one else has ever depicted a woman tipping her chair forward yo look through a window. The woman makes contact with a girl on the other side of the glass. This is not an exterior window, but a window into another room - not unusual in 17th-century houses. Vrel struggled with the chair: he adjusted the length and exact position of the chair legs while he was painting it. He also had trouble with the perspective of the corners of the room. It is small details, such as the child behind the glass or the nail and its shadow on the white plastered wall, that make this a joy to look at. The way Vrel signed the work is also delightful - on a strip of paper lying seemingly unnoticed on the floor. It is a device he used often.
The well-known collector Frits Lugt (1884 - 1970), who had a penchant of the work of little-known artists, bought this painting in 1918. He then lent it for two years to the Mauritshuis, which doesn't have a work by Veel in its collection.”
The Mauritshuis in the Hague is currently showing “My Girl with a Pearl,” a lighthearted and vastly creative digital installation, where the iconic painting usually resides.
Resulting from an open call last year that garnered nearly 3,500 submissions, the temporary piece features 170 renditions of Vermeer’s 1655 portrait presented on a loop. Mediums and styles vary widely, and the installation features everything from an abstract iteration using multi-color rubber bands to elegantly photographed portraiture to the viral corn-cob figure.
“There is a difference between Catholic and Protestant attitudes to painting," he explained as he worked, "but it is not necessarily as great as you may think. Paintings may serve a spiritual purpose for Catholics, but remember too that Protestants see God everywhere, in everything. By painting everyday things - tables and chairs, bowls and pitchers, soldiers and maids - are they not celebrating God's creation as well?”