This week’s works of art is an early work by the renowned Dutch painter Jan Vermeer, though technically Johannes Vermeer. In fact, the Swiss Berger Foundation claims it’s Vermeer’s very first known painting, though others disagree. It’s most often known as The Procuress, though occasionally it’s called The Go-Between. Painted in 1656, today the painting hangs in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, which is in Dresden, Germany. I saw the original when I visited the nearby Radeberg Brauerei a number of years ago, as we stayed in downtown Dresden.
In “Vermeer: The Complete Works,” author Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr, describes the painting:
Few of Vermeer’s paintings are as provocative as this fascinating scene of mercenary love, which, in its subject, as well as in its momentary gestures and expressions, seems to differ from his earlier biblical and mythological scenes. Here, behind a balustrade covered by a richly decorated rug, a procuress looks approvingly at a soldier, who offers a young woman a coin while fondling her breast. Holding a glass of wine in one hand, she willingly accepts his proposition with her other.
Wikipedia has its own page for the painting. And Essential Vermeer also has analysis of the painting from additional sources. They also have a very cool interactive Procuress where you hold your mouse over different parts of the painting to get detailed information about that area. For our purposes, here’s what they have to say about the beer in the picture:
And here’s the information about the Römer glass referred to above:
You can read Vermeer’s biography at Wikipedia and at ArTable. There are also endless resources at Essential Vermeer. To see the rest of Vermeer’s paintings, the Essential Vermeer has a complete collection or check out the Web Museum, the Web Gallery of Art or the Artchive.