Girl With a Red Hat, Jan Vermeer:
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Girl With a Red Hat by Jan Vermeer Interpretation of Dutch Realist Portrait/Genre Painting MAIN A-Z INDEX

Girl With a Red HatBy Jan Vermeer, the leader ofthe Delft Dutch Realist artists.It is considered one of theGreatest Paintings Ever.

Contents

Description • Interpretation/Meaning of Girl With a Red Hat • Analysis of Other Works by Vermeer

Description

Artist : Jan Vermeer (1632-75) Medium : Oil on wood panel Genre : Dutch Realist genre painting Movement : 17th Century Dutch Painting Location : National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.

For more masterpieces, see: Famous Paintings Analyzed.

Art EducationTo appreciate painters likethe Dutch Realist Vermeer, see our educational essays:Art Evaluation:How to Appreciate Art and also:How to Appreciate Paintings.

Whether treated as genre painting – in keeping with his general oeuvre – or as portrait art, this small oil painting by the Delft artist Jan Vermeer, measuring a mere 9 x 7 inches, is often paired with Girl with a Flute (c.1666), which is also in the National Gallery of Art, in Washington. Both works are very small, both share certain stylistic similarities, and they are the only known panel paintings by the artist, whose other works are all painted on canvas. In addition, they appear to feature the same model. As far as provenance goes, their content is consistent with the description ("head in antique costume") of items 39 and 40 in the catalogue of the 1696 Vermeer sale, while their exceptionally low price (17 guilders) is suggestive of their small size. Girl with a Red Hat was subsequently purchased by Baron Louis Marie Atthalin (1784-1856) at the Hotel de Bouillon, in Paris, in 1822, being handed down through the family until it was sold by the New York art dealer Knoedler & Co to Andrew W. Mellon, who passed in on to the National Gallery of Art in 1937. Girl with a Flute was also disposed of by Knoedler & Co, who in addition sold Vermeer’s Soldier and a Laughing Girl (c.1658) to the American collector H.C. Frick in 1911.

Controversy

Largely because of the fact that it was painted on a wooden panel, rather than his usual canvas, art scholars have cast doubt on the authenticity of both Girl with a Red Hat, and Girl with a Flute. Some have even suggested they were painted by a French forger in the early 19th century. However, it is almost certain that Vermeer used panels as well as canvas in his work, at least towards the end of his life. The room by room inventory made of his house in 1676, shortly after his death, listed six panels and ten canvases along with two easels and three palettes. The nature of the listing makes it absolutely clear that these were painting materials. In any case, using a panel as ground, instead of canvas, makes perfect sense for a very small painting, where accuracy is vital. (For a slightly larger portrait on canvas by Vermeer, see Girl With a Pearl Earring (c.1664-6) Mauritshuis, The Hague.)

Dendrological Analysis

Furthermore, dendrological analysis into the age of the wood has determined conclusively that the panel used for Girl with a Flute dates from the middle of the Dutch Baroque period (c.1650). Given its close similarities to Girl with a Red Hat (as well as the above-mentioned consistency with items 39 and 40 in the important Vermeer auction of 1696), the latter would also appear to date from the same period. This view is supported by other factors: first, several specialists have examined the rendering of the tapestry in the background of Girl with a Red Hat and found that it compares favourably with known late sixteenth-century Flemish types; second, the model’s pose, if not the chair, is similar to one used by Frans Hals in several of his portraits, including some during the 1660s – if this was deliberately ’copied’ by a 19th century forger, for instance, why choose an odd medium like a panel?; third, Girl with a Red Hat was at least the third oil painting attributed to Vermeer, after Girl with a Flute and Soldier and a Laughing Girl, to pass through the hands of the New York art dealer Knoedler & Co – one would have thought they would know enough about the artist to form an accurate view of the picture’s provenance.