Senhora Diante do Virginal (Lady Standing at a Virginal / Young Woman Standing at a Virginal) - Johannes Vermeer

Senhora Diante do Virginal (Lady Standing at a Virginal / Young Woman Standing at a Virginal) - Johannes Vermeer
National Gallery, Londres, Inglaterra
OST - 51x45 - 1670-1672



Lady Standing at a Virginal is a genre painting created by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer in about 1670–1672, now in the National Gallery, London.
The oil painting depicts a richly dressed woman playing a virginal in a home with a tiled floor, paintings on the wall and some of the locally manufactured Delftware blue and white tiles of a type that appear in other Vermeer works.
The identities of the paintings on the wall are not certain, according to the National Gallery, but the landscape on the left may be by either Jan Wijnants or Allart van Everdingen. The second painting, showing Cupid holding a card, is attributed to Caesar van Everdingen, Allart's brother. This motif originated in a contemporary emblem and may either represent the idea of faithfulness to a single lover or perhaps, reflecting the presence of the virginal, the traditional association of music and love.
The painting has been dated on stylistic grounds and on the evidence of the costume. This work can be related to another Vermeer in the collection, Lady Seated at a Virginal, on a canvas of almost exactly the same size, with which it may form a pair. A recent study has shown that the canvas for the two paintings came from the same bolt. In addition, the ground applied to the canvas of each painting appears to be identical and also to be shared with the New York Young Woman Seated at the Virginals.
The young woman at the keyboard holds our eye with a direct gaze. The empty chair suggests she is expecting someone and the large painting of a naked Cupid, the god of erotic love, on the wall behind her may be a signal that she is waiting for her lover. Scenes of music making were a popular genre in seventeenth-century Holland. They were often associated with romantic encounters, sometimes obviously bawdy ones, sometimes apparently innocent. Here, the style of the Cupid painting derives from a book illustration on the theme of faithful love.
There has been much speculation that this picture and another by Vermeer, A Young Woman Seated at a Virginal (also in the National Gallery), might have been made as a pair. There are many similarities between the two, but also an apparent contrast. One may represent fidelity, the other a venal, mercenary approach to love.