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The renaming of a Vermeer in the National Gallery of Art's collection raises fresh doubts about the great artist.
Experts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. said on Friday that one of the four paintings formerly attributed to Vermeer has been removed from the gallery's collection. This settles a decades-long dispute, but it also begs new questions about the Dutch master's life.
Historians noted during a press conference that although Girl with a Flute was not painted by Johannes Vermeer, it was clearly done by someone familiar with Vermeer's style. The notion that Vermeer was an individual creator is thus disproved.
"by a friend of Vermeer, not by the Dutch artist himself," conclude the curators, conservators, and scientists who examined the piece with both scientific equipment and their own eyes.
The decision was made by the museum the day before the opening of a new exhibition titled "Vermeer's Secrets." New information regarding Vermeer's painting processes is presented here. One of the best sections of Girl With a Flute is the investigation that begins in the year 2020. All four Vermeer paintings will be conserved in the museum's conservation lab during the lengthier shutdown in 2020. These artworks are almost never hidden away.
The experts agreed that the Girl with a Flute is roughly the same proportions as Vermeer's Girl with a Red Hat. Both are unusual in that they were painted on wood.
After that, there were no longer any substantial parallels. The museum claimed that a close inspection of the painting Girl With a Flute under a microscope revealed that it lacked the characteristic precision of Vermeer's work and that the final layer of paint contained coarsely ground pigments that did not match the smooth finish of the 35 paintings attributed to him.
The identity of the "colleague" who painted Girl with a Flute remains a mystery. There is no trace of the workshop's existence, and no names or contact information have been preserved. The museum speculates that Vermeer's family members or other hired artists worked on these pieces. Since Vermeer only produced 35 paintings, most art historians have assumed that he did not have any students or assistants.
The Director of the National Gallery of Art, Kaywin Feldman, stated in a press statement that the discovery of additional artists who collaborated with Johannes Vermeer "may be one of the most important things we've learnt about him in decades."
She added that the finding "changes the way we think about Vermeer in a fundamental sense."
Located on the National Mall between Third and Ninth Streets on Constitution Avenue NW, the National Gallery of Art is one of the world's finest art museums and is home to the Sculpture Garden. The museum was founded privately in 1937 for the benefit of the American people through a joint resolution of the United States Congress, and it is open to the public at no cost. Andrew W. Mellon provided both a sizable art collection and building funding. Paul Mellon, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, Lessing J. Rosenwald, Samuel Henry Kress, Rush Harrison Kress, Peter Arrell Browne Widener, Joseph E. Widener, and Chester Dale all donated substantial works of art that form the backbone of the collection. The collection of artworks on display at the Gallery spans the history of Western art from the Middle Ages to the present day. Highlights of the collection include the largest mobile ever made by Alexander Calder and the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci to be found in the Americas.
There is the old neoclassical West Building by John Russell Pope, the more modern East Building by I. M. Pei, and the 6.1-acre (25,000 m2) Sculpture Garden on the Gallery's property. Temporary, themed special exhibitions from all around the world and throughout art history are regularly featured at the Gallery. This museum ranks high among the continent's best.
The National Gallery of Art is frequently ranked among the best museums in the United States, alongside the likes of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art, Chicago's Art Institute of Chicago, and Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. It's the only free art museum in the United States' top three, ranked by annual visits. Attracting 1,704,606 guests in 2021.
