''Lady Seated at a Virginal'' (Dutch: ''Zittende virginaalspeelster''), also known as ''Young Woman Seated at a Virginal'', is a genre painting created by the

Dutch Golden Age painter Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history roughly spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) for Dutch independence. The new Dutch Republi ...

Johannes Vermeer Johannes Vermeer ( , , see below; also known as Jan Vermeer; October 1632 – 15 December 1675) was a Dutch Baroque Period painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. During his lifetime, he was a moderately succe ...

in about 1670–1672 and now in the

National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director ...

, London.

''Lady Seated at a Virginal''

Another painting, probably also by Johannes Vermeer known as '' A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals'', belongs to a private collection shows also a young woman seated at a

virginal The virginals (or virginal) is a keyboard instrument of the harpsichord family. It was popular in Europe during the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. Description A virginal is a smaller and simpler rectangular or polygonal form of ha ...

. This painting and ''Lady Seated at a Virginal'' are quite separate works and are each known by alternate names and confusion between those two pieces may exist.

Description

The picture shows a woman facing left and playing a virginal. In the left foreground is a

viola da gamba The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitch ...

holding a bow between its strings. A landscape is painted on the inside lid of the virginal, and the painting on the wall is either the original or a copy of '' The Procuress'' by

Dirck van Baburen Dirck Jaspersz. van Baburen (c. 1595 – 21 February 1624) was a Dutch painter and one of the Utrecht Caravaggisti. Biography Dirck van Baburen was probably born in Wijk bij Duurstede, but his family moved to Utrecht when he was still youn ...

(c. 1622, now in the Museum of Fine Arts in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

), which belonged to Vermeer's mother-in-law. The Dimensions of the painting is 51.5 cm (20.3 in) height and 45.5 cm (17.9 in) width.

Commentary

Because of its style, the painting has been dated to about 1670. It has been suggested that it and '' Lady Standing at a Virginal'' (also owned by the National Gallery) may have been created as pendants, because their sizes, date and subject matter are all similar. A recent study has shown that the canvas for the two paintings also came from the same bolt. In addition, the ground applied to the canvas appears identical to that used for both the '' Lady Standing'' and the New York '' Young Woman Seated''. However their provenances before the 19th century differ, and Vermeer sometimes varied a theme in otherwise unrelated paintings. In the 19th century, both paintings were owned by the art critic

Théophile Thoré Theophilus is a male given name with a range of alternative spellings. Its origin is the Greek word Θεόφιλος from θεός (God) and φιλία (love or affection) can be translated as "Love of God" or "Friend of God", i.e., it is a theoph ...

, whose writings led to a resurgence of interest in Vermeer starting in 1866. The painting entered the National Gallery with the Salting Bequest in 1910. The painting is one of several works by Vermeer featuring keyboard instruments, including '' The Music Lesson'', '' The Concert'', and '' Lady Standing at a Virginal''. Scholars believe these may all be based on the same instrument, built by Johannes Ruckers.

''Lady Seated at a Virginal''

Description

Commentary

See also

References

Further reading