VII

THE MAGIC VERMEER

I

Who owns the thirty-fifth canvas by Jan Vermeer of Delft? And are
there more than thirty-five works by this master of cool, clear
daylight? I have seen nearly all the pictures attributed to the too
little known Dutchman, and as far as was in my power I have read all
the critical writings by such experts as Havard, Obreen, Bredius,
Hofstede de Groot (Jan Vermeer van Delft en Carel Fabritius, 1907),
Doctor Bode, Wauters, Arsene Alexandre, G. Geoffroy, Buerger, Taine,
John Smith, Gustave Vanzype, and several others.

Doctor A. Bredius has printed an article entitled: A Pseudo-Vermeer in
the Berlin gallery, which I have not been able to procure, but then
the same worthy authority has contested the authenticity of the
portrait of a young man in the Brussels Museum. It is not signed, this
beautiful head, and at one time it was in the English collections of
Humphry Ward and Peter Norton, and later in the Collection Otlet at
Brussels. Smith catalogued it as a Rembrandt; indeed, it had the false
signature of the great master. Much later it was accredited to Jan
Victoors, a Rembrandt pupil, and to Nicolas Maes, and under this name
was sold in Paris in 1900. A. J. Wauters finally declared it a
Vermeer, though neither Bredius nor Hofstede de Groot are of his
opinion. And now we hear the question: Who owns the thirty-fifth
Vermeer, Vermeer of the magical blue and yellow?

First let us ask: Who was Jan Vermeer, or Van der Meer? "What songs
did the sirens sing?" puzzled good old Sir Thomas Browne, and we know
far more about William Shakespeare or Sappho or Memling than we do of
the enigmatic man from Delft who died a double death in 1675; not only
the death of the body, but the death of the spirit, of his immortal
art. For several centuries he was not accorded the paternity of his
own pictures. To Terburg, Pieter de Hooch, Nicolas Maes, Metsu they
were credited. Even the glorious Letter Reader of the Dresden gallery
has been attributed to De Hooch, and by no less an authority than
Charles Blanc. Fromentin, of all men, does not mention his name in his
always admirable book on the art of the Low Countries; no doubt one
cause for his neglect.

This is precisely what we know of Jan Vermeer of Delft, in which
city--oddly enough--there is not a single canvas of his. In 1632 he
was born there. In 1653 he married Catherine Bolnes;