Part 3

The Vermeer belonging to the King hangs in the private apartments at Windsor, but when I saw it, it was, by the courtesy of His Majesty’s Surveyor of Works of Art, carried into a less sacred room of that vast and imposing fortress for us to look upon. The Court was absent, and workmen were here and there, but one could have told that this was the abode of a monarch, even had one been blindfolded. There was a hush! On a walk of some miles (as it seemed) through dusky passages in which now and then one saw dimly one’s face in a slip of a mirror at the corners, we passed other creatures who had some of the outward semblance of human beings; but we were not deceived. They were marked also by a discretion, an authority, beyond ordinary mortality; not the rose, of course, but so near it that one flushed. To have this new experience, for I had never entered a royal castle before, and be on a visit to a Vermeer, was a double privilege. The Vermeer is very charming, but not one of the first rank; and its coating of varnish does not improve it. But it is from the perfect hand none the less, and there is the white Delft jug in it for the eye to return to, like a haven, after every voyage over the canvas.

England also has Vermeer’s “Christ in the House of Martha and Mary,” which, when it was exhibited in Bond Street some few years ago, divided the experts, but is now, although not confidently, given to our painter by Dr. de Groot. This picture, which I have not seen, has in the reproduction much of the large easy confidence of the “Diana and her Nymphs” at the Hague. It hangs now in Skelmorlie Castle, and some day I hope to blow a blast outside those Scottish walls and succeed in getting the drawbridge lowered that I may look upon it.

There are nine examples in America to-day (1911). Of these Dr. de Groot reproduces only six, for the other three have come to light since he published. The six which he gives are--Mr. B. Altman’s “Woman Asleep” (from the Rodolph Kann Collection), Mr. James G. Johnson’s “Lady with the Mandoline,” Mrs. Jack Gardner’s “Three Musicians,” Mr. H. C. Frick’s “Singing Lesson,” Mr. Pierpont Morgan’s “Lady with Flute,” and “The Woman with the Water Jug,” in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Of these I have seen only Mr. Morgan’s, described above. The three new ones are Mr. Morgan’s “Lady Writing,” Mrs. Huntington’s “Lady with Lute,” and Mr. Widener’s “Lady Weighing Pearls” (or gold), which was exhibited in London early in 1911, and which brings Dr. de Groot’s list to thirty-seven. This new Vermeer is not absolutely his best; it is not so great and simple and strong as “The Milkmaid,” at the Ryks; it is not so radiant as “The Pearl Necklace,” at the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin; it is not so exquisite and miraculous a counterfeit of life as the “Girl’s Head,” at the Mauritshuis; nor so enchanting and epoch-making as the “View of Delft,” in the same gallery. Those I take to be the artist’s four finest pictures. But it is well in his first dozen, and it is vastly better than either of those in the National Gallery.

The new picture represents a woman: one of those placid domestic creatures to whom Vermeer’s brush lent a radiance only a gleam of which many a Madonna of the Southern masters would have envied. How little can they have thought, these Delft housewives and maidens, that they were destined for such an immortality! She stands beside a table, as most of Vermeer’s women do, and she has a jacket of dark-blue velvet trimmed with fur, and a white handkerchief over her head. The tablecloth also is blue; the curtain is orange. Standing there, she poises in her right hand a pair of goldsmith’s scales. On the table is a profusion of pearls (painted with less miraculous dexterity than usual), and a tapestry rug has been tossed there too. Behind her placid, comely head, on the wall (where Vermeer usually places a map), a picture of the Last Judgment hangs, which may or may not be identifiable. (I should doubt if Vermeer introduced it with any ironical intention; that was not his way.) This picture is on a light grey wall. The light comes, of course, from the left, and never did this master of light paint it--or educe it--more wonderfully. It triumphs through the window and curtain exactly as in “The Pearl Necklace,” past the same black mirror. The woman’s face, however, has the greatest lustre; from it is diffused a lambency of such beauty that one might almost say that the rest of the picture matters nothing; such a soft and lovely glow were enough. The work is not signed, except with the signature of immanent personality.

Since the discovery of this picture--No. 36--yet another has been found--a large group of children representing Diana and her nymphs--which Mr. Paterson of Old Bond Street--the discoverer of “Christ in the House of Martha and Mary”--has in his possession. Mr. Paterson is a true Vermeer enthusiast, and not one of those with whom the wish is the father to the thought. His new Vermeer is obviously an early work and is on a larger scale than any of the others: it has weaknesses of drawing and in more than one respect suggests an experimental stage; but one cannot doubt its authorship, and everywhere it is interesting, and here and there exquisite, especially in the figure of the child in the left-hand corner. With this picture the list of practically unquestionable Vermeers reaches thirty-eight.

There remain the one or two on the border-line of authenticity at which I have glanced, and also a signed landscape in the possession of Mr. Newton Robinson. This, if genuine (as I do not doubt), is Vermeer’s only woodland scene, with the exception of those on the walls of other of his pictures, such as that in the National Gallery, for example. It is a soft brown landscape, as little like Vermeer as possible in the mass. But in the detail--particularly in one detail--the signature is corroborated. In the foreground is a little arbour with some young people in it holding a musical party. The most prominent figure is a girl crowned with flowers: and this girl is sheer Vermeer in attitude, in charm, and in technique. The work is, I should guess, juvenile and experimental, but it has many attractions and is of the deepest interest as the thirty-ninth _opus_ on the side of certainty.

Vermeer’s practically unquestionable output thus totals thirty-nine pictures. Think of the smallness of the harvest. Thirty-nine! That is to say, hardly more for Vermeer’s whole career than the Boningtons to be seen in a single London collection--that at Hertford House--where there are thirty-five of his works. And Bonington died at the age of twenty-seven. How many pictures by Bonington exist I know not, but hundreds, I suppose, in all. And Vermeer has only thirty-nine to his name, and lived nearly twice as long, and had eight children to support.

The question that confronts us, the question to which all these remarks of mine have been leading, then, is, _Where are the others?_ Because there must have been others; indeed we know of a few, as I will presently show; but there must have been many others, since Vermeer began to paint when he was young, and painted till the end, and had a working period of, say, twenty-four years--between 1652, when he was twenty, and 1676, when he died. At the modest rate of only four pictures a year this would give him a total of ninety-six pictures, or nearly sixty more than we know of. But putting his output at a lower rate--say at two pictures a year--that would leave us with several still to discover. Of the existence at one time of two if not more of these we have absolute knowledge, gained from the catalogue of the Vermeer sale in Amsterdam in 1696, which I copy from M. Vanzype’s pages, together with the prices that they made and his commentary:--

“1. A young girl weighing gold in a little casket. 155 florins.

“2. A milkwoman. 175 fls.

“3. The portrait of the painter, in a room. 45 fls.

“4. A young woman playing the guitar. 70 fls.

“5. A nobleman in his room. 95 fls.

“6. A young woman at the harpsichord, and a young gentleman listening. 30 fls.

“7. A young woman taking a letter from a servant. 70 fls.

“8. A drunken servant, sleeping at a table. 62 fls.

“9. A gay company in a room. 73 fls.

“10. A man and a young woman making music. 81 fls.

“11. A soldier with a young girl who is laughing. 44 fls.

“12. A young lace-maker. 28 fls.

“13. View of Delft. 200 fls.

“14. House at Delft. 72 fls.

“15. View of several houses. 48 fls.

“16. Young woman writing. 63 fls.

“17. Young woman adorning herself. 30 fls.

“18. Young woman at the harpsichord. 42 fls.

“19. A portrait in ancient costume. 36 fls.

“20. and 21. Two pendants. 34 fls.”

On the above catalogue M. Vanzype comments as follows:--

“The greater number of these pictures seem to have been recovered.

“The _Milkwoman_ [No. 2] is, in all probability, the one hanging for so long in the Six collection.

“The _Young woman playing the guitar_ [No. 4] is actually the picture belonging to Mr. Johnson, in Philadelphia. It has been in the Cremer collection at Brussels and in the H. Bischoffsheim collection in London.

“The _Young woman at a harpsichord with a gentleman listening_ [No. 6] is no doubt the much-admired picture at Windsor Castle, where it is one of the treasures and is called _The Music Lesson_. It was sold at Amsterdam at the Roos sale, in 1820, for 340 florins.

“The _Young woman taking a letter from a servant_ [No. 7] is at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, under the title _The Letter_. It was bought by the State, through the intervention of the Rembrandt Society and of M. Van Lennep, from M. Messcher Van Vollenhoven for 45,000 florins.

“The _Drunken servant sleeping at a table_ [No. 8] is, in all probability, the picture which until just lately belonged to the Kahn collection in Paris, and of the authenticity of which there is no doubt. [This was bought by Mr. Altman in 1910.] Bürger possessed another picture, a servant sleeping in a kitchen, and he believed that this was the work sold in 1696. In his picture the figure is not leaning on the table. It is now in the Widener collection and in it the characteristic qualities of Vermeer are not to be found.

“_A man and a young woman making music_ [No. 10] is probably the _Singing Lesson_ of the Frick collection at Pittsburg.

“_A soldier with a young girl who is laughing_ [No. 11] is Mrs. Joseph’s picture in London.

“_The young lace-maker_ [No. 12] is the little _chef-d’œuvre_ in the Louvre sold for 84 francs at the Muilman sale in 1813; 501 in 1817 at the Lapeyrière sale; 265 fls. at the Nagel sale in 1851, and in 1870 bought by M. Blockhuyzen, of Rotterdam, for 1270 frs.

“The _View of Delft_ [No. 13], if it has no replica, is the picture in the Museum at the Hague, for which 2900 fls. was paid at the Stinstra sale in 1822.

“The _House at Delft_ [No. 14] is the _Ruelle_ of the Six collection.

“The _Young woman writing_ [No. 16] is without doubt the picture in the Beit collection in London. This was in the Héris sale at Brussels in 1857.

“The _Young woman adorning herself_ [No. 17] is _The Pearl Necklace_ in the Berlin Museum.

“The _Young woman at the harpsichord_ [No. 18] is either the picture in the National Gallery or that in the Beit collection, or perhaps that in the Salting collection [now also at the National Gallery].

“It is believed that the portrait in ancient costume [No. 19] is the portrait of the young girl in the Museum at the Hague [my frontispiece].

“[Nos. 20 and 21.] Finally, since at the Hendrik Borgh sale in 1720 one _Astrologer_ and its pendant were sold for 160 fls.; and since two _Astrologers_ and a pendant were sold at the Neyman sale in 1797 for 270 and 132 fls., it may be deduced that the pendants of the 1696 sale are either the two _Geographers_ which belong at the present day to the Museum at Frankfort and to M. Du Bus de Gisegnies at Brussels; or one only of these and M. Alphonse de Rothschild’s _Astronomer_.”

To these remarks of M. Vanzype may be added that No. 1 is the picture recently exhibited in London and now in Mr. Widener’s collection, and No. 3 is probably the Czernin picture. No. 9 might be the Brunswick painting. This leaves us only with two of the Amsterdam sale pictures to discover--No. 5, _A nobleman in his room_, and No. 15, _View of several houses_. But, of course, certain others which M. Vanzype and I think we have traced may be wholly different. M. Vanzype furthermore remarks: “Other pictures have at certain times been heard of and have since disappeared, notably the ‘_Dévideuse_’ discussed in 1865 by Bürger and an English connoisseur, which was then in England, but of which no trace has since been found.”

Among the thirty-nine that are known, although there are many interiors such as the painter loved, there is, remember, only one woodland scene, only one pure landscape, only one religious subject, only one real portrait, only one street scene, only one kitchen scene, only one purely classical subject, only one family scene. The isolation of these examples fills one with a kind of fury. No painter, and especially no painter with such an interest in the difficulties of his art, such a painter’s painter, so to speak, as Vermeer, and moreover a man with eight children and a clamorous baker--no painter paints only one landscape, especially when the result is so commandingly successful as the “View of Delft.” Where are the others? (M. Vanzype has found a replica, but it is not generally accepted.) No painter is satisfied with one attempt at a beautiful façade. Where are the others? (We know there was one other.) No painter paints only one classical subject. Where are the others? (Mr. Paterson’s example is only half-classical: classical with a domestic flavour: a family scene in masquerade, to be exact.) No painter paints only one religious subject. Where are the others? No painter paints only one portrait pure and simple as distinguished from portrait and _genre_. M. Vanzype, it is true, claims to have found another; but that would make only two. How indeed would he be allowed to paint no others, when he was Vermeer of Delft and lived in an age of Dutch prosperity and Dutch interest in art? Where are the others? Do you see how one feels--how maddening it is that these bare forty are all, when one knows that there must have been many more?

Vermeer may, of course, have himself destroyed some, as Claude Monet recently destroyed a number of his. But I do not think so; he could not have afforded to, and he was not that kind. No: they still exist somewhere. And the question where are they brings us back to the wealth of Mr. Pierpont Morgan, for which I was wishing at the beginning of this essay. With it I would furnish expeditions not to discover the Poles north and south, because I care nothing for them; not to conquer the air, because I love too much to feel my feet on this green earth; not to break banks or to finance companies; not to kill the gentle giraffe for America’s museums; but simply to hunt among the byways of Northern Europe in the hope of coming upon another work by that exquisite Delft hand. That is how I would spend my money; and incidentally what charming adventures one would have, and what subsidiary treasure one would gather! That would be an expedition worth making, even if the prime object of the search always eluded us.

The Fool’s Paradise

There is an old picture-shop in the West-Central district of London, notable for the grime of its canvases, in the window of which there is to be seen at this moment--unless a confiding purchaser has just borne it off--a girl’s head and bust by some very indifferent Dutch hand, under which is printed on the frame the startling and courageous legend, “The Coral Necklace. By Jan Vermeer, of Delft.”

Of course the ascription is inaccurate. Were it accurate and the picture worthy of it, this little shop would be the Mecca of the first art experts of Europe and America, and the dealer would be in the way to affluence; nor does the picture’s present owner probably believe in it. But what of some previous possessor who did believe in it--some simple soul who was genuinely convinced that upon his wall hung a portrait by this rarest and most exquisite and radiant of Dutch masters? Do you not envy him his easy credence, his want of fastidious taste? I do.

A little while ago there was a lawsuit--indeed a series of lawsuits--all turning upon the collection of porcelain left by a wealthy Regent Street merchant, whose hobby was the acquisition of china. As a man in the prime of life he had been a good judge; but as he grew older and his brain weakened his sense of discrimination left him, and it was discovered that his later purchases, so far from being the priceless examples of Dresden and other ware which they were thought to be, were all-but worthless. This naturally was a grief and disappointment to the heirs who were to benefit from the sale; but for us to be sorry for him is as foolish a waste of sympathy as I know. For though there he sat, that old amateur of ceramics, surrounded by the mediocre, yet in that he believed it to be the choicest he was enviable. That belief is the heart of the case, since it is not what things really are, but what one thinks things to be, that is the important matter.

Truth has a slightly different expression for every one. To this aged connoisseur with his decaying faculties her expression was falseness itself, could he have scrutinised it with intelligence, but to his dim eyes it looked like the finest candour, and therefore it was the finest candour. He sunned himself in it, and passing his hands lovingly over the spurious shepherdesses was happy. The point is that he could not have been happier had the porcelain been truly of the rarest and most wonderful.

I hope it will never be my fortune to visit a picture collector whose walls are hung entirely with obvious copies which he believes to be original, and flagrant daubs which he thinks masterpieces--a collector in short who relies only on the posthumous activity of artists; yet if it is, I hope I shall know how to control myself when he displays his treasures. But of one thing I am certain: that no matter how I may suffer from the concealment of my true feelings as an art lover, I shall experience a genuine affection for my host, and a genuine delight in his transparent, credible nature. Surely the people who live in fool’s paradises are the salt of the earth. The man who says of a fine thing, “A fine thing and my own,” I can admire, but not necessarily with warmth; the man (he is very common) who says of a fine thing, “A poor thing, but my own,” I have very little use for; but the man who says of a poor thing, “A fine thing and my own,” him I admire cordially, and could almost embrace.

But about this Vermeer. I cannot get it out of my head, for Vermeer is a painter of whom, as you know, I have made some study, and the thought of any one really sitting down excitedly with this grotesquely misattributed picture in his room, reading the lying label without a qualm, even with pride, scanning the commonplace paint with no twinge of dubiety--it is this thought which beats me. The man who confidently had the legend printed on the frame must indeed have been a simpleton beyond appraisement--the very briniest salt of the soil. For consider: the copyists, the forgers, may do credible things with Corot, even with Raphael. Every day they are writing David Cox’s signature on old water-colours; false ascriptions are the life-blood of too many firms. That is true. But Vermeer--there is only one Vermeer! and yet some man could know enough about Vermeer to wish to have something by him on his wall (modest wish--there are not, as I have been saying, forty known Vermeer canvases in the world), and then be satisfied with this! If ever I longed to meet a freak it is he--not only to examine his bumps, but to abase myself before him. For there is a true philosopher, a really wise man, if you like.

Meanwhile I wish some dramatist with an eye to quaint character, if there be such a one left, would set upon the stage for us a paradisiacal fool such as this--a simple kind of enthusiast without a shred of critical faculty or a drop of guile, whom we might see amiably fondling his geese and deeming them swans. That would give me, for one, great pleasure. Lamb, in his Captain Jackson, approached and skirted the type, but Vermeer’s “Coral Necklace” would not have attracted that engaging creature. If Anatole France were a dramatist and would return to the gentle, smiling mood in which he thought out and built up his Sylvestre Bonnard, he might give us this collector. I can think of no one else; and even he would probably be a little too much inclined to whip something on his back, such a castigator and ridiculer as he is.

Consolers of Genius

I have just added another famous dog to my list. It was a good list before, but it is now richer. It included Matthew Arnold’s Geist and Max and Kaiser, George Meredith’s Islet, Cowper’s Beau, Newton’s Diamond, Mrs. Browning’s Flush, Mr. Lehmann’s Rufus, all Dr. John Brown’s many friends, Scott’s deerhounds, Mortimer Collins’s St. Bernards, Pope’s spaniel. I remember only these as I write, but of course there are many others. And to this company enters now “Pomero.”

Landor’s “Pomero” came to him late in life--in the early ’forties--by which time the old man--he was then nearing seventy but had twenty fairly stormy years left--had settled again in England, his wife and family and most of his sympathies being far away in Italy. At Bath he then lived, making occasional visits to Gore House, and varying the composition of exquisite prose and tender felicitous verse with quarrels and tempests and tempests and reconciliations and tempests and lawsuits. Such then was the possessor of “Pomero”--or, as he would probably have called himself, the proud possession of “Pomero”--of whom such glimpses as I have had come to me in scraps of letters quoted by Forster in his Life of this noble, troubled, impossible, glorious creature.

Here is one, written by Landor at Warwick, when away from home, or what stood for home at that period--1844. Pomero had only just arrived from Fiesole; and it is worth remarking that had Landor lived to-day no such fortune would ever have been his, for never would he have survived such explosions of rage as the modern six months’ quarantine for imported dogs would have brought on him. (Think of him expressing his views to the custom-house officer at Dover!) “Daily,” he wrote, “do I think of Bath and Pomero. I fancy him lying on the narrow window-sill, and watching the good people go to church. He has not yet made up his mind between the Anglican and Roman Catholic; but I hope he will continue in the faith of his forefathers, if it will make him happier.”