Mystery of the Lost Paintings ep. 4 - Mystery of the Lost Vermeer
A team of ingenious art experts recreate The Concert by Johannes Vermeer, which was stolen from a Boston museum in 1990 in the biggest art heist of modern times.
The Concert (c. 1664) is a painting by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer which depicts a man and two women performing music. It belonged to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, but was stolen in 1990 and remains missing. On account of this circumstance, it has been the subject of a large number of popular allusions.
The picture measures 72.5 by 64.7 centimetres and shows three musicians: a young woman sitting at a harpsichord, a man playing the lute, and a woman who is singing. The harpsichord's upturned lid is decorated with an Arcadian landscape; its bright coloring stands in contrast to the two paintings hanging on the wall to the right and left. A viola da gamba can be seen lying on the floor. The musicians are identified by their clothing and surroundings as members of the upper bourgeoisie. The male lute player, for instance, wears a shoulder belt and a sword. And for all its restraint, the black and white marble flooring is luxurious and expensive.
Of the two paintings in the background, the one on the right is The Procuress by Dirck Van Baburen, which belonged to Vermeer's mother-in-law, Maria Thins. The work also appears in his Lady Seated at a Virginal, probably painted some six years after The Concert. The painting on the left is a wild pastoral landscape. The musical theme in Dutch painting in Vermeer's time often connoted love and seduction, but in this case the feeling is more ambiguous. Although the presence of Van Baburen's sexually exuberant picture suggests such an interpretation, its function may be to provide a contrast with the actual domestic situation. In the same way, the peaceful scenes depicted on the harpsichord contrast with the wild landscape painting on the wall.
Mystery of the Lost Paintings ep. 4 - Mystery of the Lost Vermeer
The Concert (c. 1664) is a painting by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer which depicts a man and two women performing music. It belonged to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, but was stolen in 1990 and remains missing. On account of this circumstance, it has been the subject of a large number of popular allusions.
The picture measures 72.5 by 64.7 centimetres and shows three musicians: a young woman sitting at a harpsichord, a man playing the lute, and a woman who is singing. The harpsichord's upturned lid is decorated with an Arcadian landscape; its bright coloring stands in contrast to the two paintings hanging on the wall to the right and left. A viola da gamba can be seen lying on the floor. The musicians are identified by their clothing and surroundings as members of the upper bourgeoisie. The male lute player, for instance, wears a shoulder belt and a sword. And for all its restraint, the black and white marble flooring is luxurious and expensive.
Of the two paintings in the background, the one on the right is The Procuress by Dirck Van Baburen, which belonged to Vermeer's mother-in-law, Maria Thins. The work also appears in his Lady Seated at a Virginal, probably painted some six years after The Concert. The painting on the left is a wild pastoral landscape. The musical theme in Dutch painting in Vermeer's time often connoted love and seduction, but in this case the feeling is more ambiguous. Although the presence of Van Baburen's sexually exuberant picture suggests such an interpretation, its function may be to provide a contrast with the actual domestic situation. In the same way, the peaceful scenes depicted on the harpsichord contrast with the wild landscape painting on the wall.
