johannes
VERMEER
Patrons of Vermeer
As a wealthy Delft citizen, Pieter Claesz. van Ruijven held a special place in his heart for Vermeer. He not only loaned Vermeer 200 guilders in 1657, which may very well have been an advance toward the purchase of one of his paintings, but even mentioned the painter in he and his wife's will and testament. Van Ruijven's wife dedicated in this document 500 guilders to Vermeer, the only nonrelative mentioned in the will. This bestowing of money to a painter was rare during this time, even for a rich Dutch patron like van Ruijven.
The couple's daughter, Madgdalene, married Jacob Aabrahamsz. Dissius, who became the heir of his wife's parents' art collection, which included 21 Vermeer works! The collection was auctioned off in Amsterdam in May 1696.
The signatures of Vermeer and his wife Catarina as they receive their 200 guilder loan from van Ruijven
Although van Ruijven was likely the only formal patron of Vermeer during his time, there are many other speculations of possible patrons and supporters of the painter. Among these supporters were rich jeweler and banker Diego Duarte, postmaster Herman van Swoll and humble baker Hendrick van Buyten, who all had at least one of Vermeer's works in their possession at some point.
Critique
English traveler and author of A Wanderer in Holland on the Girl with a Pearl Earring E. V. Lucas:
"...one of the most beautiful things in Holland...the picture has to me human interest beyond description. There is a winning charm in this simple Eastern face that no words of mine can express. All that is hard in the Dutch nature dissolves beneath her reluctant smile. She symbolizes the fairest and sweetest things in the eleven Provinces. She makes Holland sacred ground".
"If the artist, like Vermeer, does not wish to announce an idea, the purely pictorial element remains, that is to say, the artist only reveals what is of value to him as a painter, not what intrigues him as a human being and a thinker. The purely pictorial observation comprises space as a light and colour picture, the abstractation in isolation of light and colour from everything else that happens in this space".
-Dutch art historian P. T. A. Swillens on Vermeer's timeless artistry