Comments on: Secrets of a 17th-c. damsel – #2 http://flyingfox.jonathanjanson.com/2008/12/01/secrets-of-a-17th-c-damsel-2/ Words from the Essential Vermeer.com Wed, 09 Nov 2011 13:08:05 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Jonathan Janson http://flyingfox.jonathanjanson.com/2008/12/01/secrets-of-a-17th-c-damsel-2/comment-page-1/#comment-49 Jonathan Janson Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:37:16 +0000 http://flyingfox.jonathanjanson.com/?p=403#comment-49 Thanks ARech...I was thinking along the same lines. These forms seem to be of the same color - a dull brown - as the wooden table. What amazed me viewing the work was the precision with which they were executed. Perhaps someone in the Rijksmuseum might be able to help. CODART has a list of curators. In the mean time, I will look at some slides I took years ago at the Rijksmuseum of a similar table and see if there is anything analogous. Thanks ARech…I was thinking along the same lines. These forms seem to be of the same color – a dull brown – as the wooden table. What amazed me viewing the work was the precision with which they were executed. Perhaps someone in the Rijksmuseum might be able to help. CODART has a list of curators. In the mean time, I will look at some slides I took years ago at the Rijksmuseum of a similar table and see if there is anything analogous.

]]> By: ARech http://flyingfox.jonathanjanson.com/2008/12/01/secrets-of-a-17th-c-damsel-2/comment-page-1/#comment-48 ARech Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:21:00 +0000 http://flyingfox.jonathanjanson.com/?p=403#comment-48 Thanks so much for all these fine details – there can't be a better preparation to view this enigmatic painting! As to Vermeer's placement of his signature it seems not so unusual to me. As far as I have observed even still-life painters did quite similar. I remember several of Willem Kalf's masterworks signed by him at exactly the same place – at the right side of a table top – executed with the same discretion and delicacy. These two puzzling circle-like forms seems to me part – maybe a kind of knob - of the technical device to extend the table (perhaps with springs or rods inside to fasten resp. to release that part of the table top). When being in Delft the next time I will have a closer look to such tables in the Prinsenhof- or Lambert van Meerten-museum. Keenly awaiting further details! AR Thanks so much for all these fine details – there can’t be a better preparation to view this enigmatic painting!

As to Vermeer’s placement of his signature it seems not so unusual to me. As far as I have observed even still-life painters did quite similar. I remember several of Willem Kalf’s masterworks signed by him at exactly the same place – at the right side of a table top – executed with the same discretion and delicacy.

These two puzzling circle-like forms seems to me part – maybe a kind of knob – of the technical device to extend the table (perhaps with springs or rods inside to fasten resp. to release that part of the table top). When being in Delft the next time I will have a closer look to such tables in the Prinsenhof- or Lambert van Meerten-museum.

Keenly awaiting further details!

AR

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