of Mr. Knoedler.

In Austria-Hungary there are two noble Vermeers; one in the private
gallery of Count Czernin, the portrait of the painter, the other in
the Museum of Budapest, the portrait of a woman, the latter as solidly
modelled as any Hals I ever viewed. The Czernin Vermeer is the only
one in Vienna (the other Vermeer in this gallery is by Renesse). It is
a masterpiece. In it he grazes perfection.

The United States is, considering the brevity of the list, well off in
Vermeers. There is at Philadelphia the Mandoliniste of John G. Johnson
(without doubt, as M. Vanzype points out, the Young Woman Playing the
Guitar of the 1696 sale). At Boston Mrs. John Gardner owns The
Concert. At the Metropolitan Museum there is the Woman with the Jug
(Marquand); and the Morgan Letter Writer; H. C. Frick boasts The
Singing Lesson (probably known at the 1696 sale as A Gentleman and
Young Lady Making Music).

So the importance of the 1696 catalogue is indisputable. And now,
after wading through this dry forest of figures and dates and
haphazard or dogmatic attributions, we are at the fatal number,
thirty-four--only thirty-four authentic Vermeers in existence. Some
one must be mistaken. Who owns the thirty-fifth Vermeer? I again ask.

II

The works attributed only to our master in the list compiled by M.
Vanzype are but six: Portrait of a Man, at the Brussels Museum; View
of Delft, in the collection of Michel Van Gelder, at Uccle, Brussels;
The Lesson, at the National Gallery, London; the Sleeping Servant,
Widener collection, Philadelphia--another version, according to
Buerger-Thore; Portrait of a Young Man, in the same collection; two
interiors, collection Werner Dahl at Duesseldorf and collection
Matavansky at Vienna, respectively. There is also to be accounted a
small landscape in the Dresden gallery, a Distant View of Haarlem
(probably by Vermeer of Haarlem), the Morgan and the Widener Vermeers.
To deny the authenticity of either of these compositions would be to
fly into the face of Vermeer himself. I have enjoyed the privilege and
pleasure of viewing the Widener Vermeers, and I believe that the
Sleeping Servant--she may not be intoxicated, a jug on the table being
the only evidence; certainly her features are placid enough; besides,
Vermeer did not indulge in paintings of low life as did Teniers,
Ostrade, or Jan Steen--is about the same period as The Merry Company,
in the Dresden galler