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I’ve been having an “affeer” with Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer for a long time. This affeer has been one-sided as I’ve gotten all the enjoyment, excitement, and pleasure during my quest to see the 37 paintings attributed to him. The fact Vermeer died in 1675 adds to the one-sided nature of the affeer.
The relationship started with a different kind of affair. An attractive female I met in a bar was into blues music and artists I had never heard of, including Vermeer. I bought her a book full of Vermeer prints. That girl, and that book, introduced me to the man. The Newport 100s she smoked, and the LaBatts beer she consumed in vast amounts, made her a short-term girlfriend.
Years later, I took my long-term girlfriend to South Beach in the middle of February. We chose one of those weeks where it was 35 degrees in Miami Beach. Because there was no beach weather, we found different things to do. A visit to the Bass Museum put me in front of a computer screen. A sign suggested that the user type in the name of his or her favorite artist. The one and only name that came to mind was Vermeer.
A list of Vermeer’s paintings and their location appeared on the screen. The list of cities was impressive. It dawned on me immediately that if someone were to see all the Vermeers in the world, they would see a good bit of Europe and the United Kingdom. That was the beginning of the romance.
I recently returned from a trip to Ireland, Scotland, and London. I saw my final three Vermeers. I call them “my” Vermeers but they belong to the world—with the exceptions of the three paintings in private collections and the one major footnote to my unique journey.
Vermeer is cool not just for the quality of his work but for all the ancillary things that happened to him long after his death. Like many artists, he struggled financially in his lifetime His widow paid off their “bread debt” to the baker with two of his paintings. Since the art world “discovered” him 200 years after he died, he has been the subject of “affeers” with art historians, wealthy collectors, and has been the unknowing subject of a collection of events that advanced his celebrity.
Vermeer’s most famous painting, The Girl With a Pearl Earring, was the subject of a novel by Tracy Chevalier and a movie starring Scarlett Johansson. That painting will be on display in New York City until January 19th of next year after having toured San Francisco and Atlanta. A new movie, Tim’s Vermeer will be released next year by Sony Pictures. This documentary examines Vermeer’s theorized use of the “camera obscura” in the fine detail of his work. Adolf Hitler once owned a Vermeer. That painting, The Art of Painting, located in Vienna’s state museum, is the subject of an ongoing lawsuit brought by the heirs of the man who sold it to Hitler. They claim the painting was sold under duress. Hitler’s partner in atrocity, Hermann Goering, was so smitten with Vermeer that he once traded 137 paintings for one single Vermeer. A work that turned out to be a forgery. Vermeer is also the subject of a children’s book, Chasing Vermeer, published in 2004.
The infamous heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in the early morning hours of March 18, 1990 is the greatest unsolved art robbery on record. There were 13 pieces of art or historical items stolen from the Gardner, including a Rembrandt. But it is Vermeer’s The Concert most identified with the robbery (the FBI considers this an open case and has a $5 million reward for the recovery of all the pieces stolen). This is my footnote. I’ve seen all the Vermeers except this one. I have, however, seen the frame from which The Concert was taken. A 2006 documentary, Stolen, details the Gardner heist and the search for the stolen pieces, especially the Vermeer.
My quest took six years. I visited eleven foreign countries, including Germany and England twice and was able to take side trips to Normandy, Bastogne, Prague (where I watched the Steelers beat the Arizona Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII), and had a private showing of The Music Lesson inside Buckingham Palace. I visited Sigmund Freud’s homes in Vienna and London. I went to the shipbuilding yard—now a museum—where the Titanic was built in Belfast, Northern Ireland. I met countless people, most friendly, and had timely luck when I needed it.
Steve Wynn, the casino operator, owned a Vermeer. I made a few calls to his office in an effort to see it. No luck. A week before I was to leave for my first train trip through Germany to visit the four museums with Vermeer paintings in their collections, I was at the local diner. Somebody had left a copy of The New York Times behind. An article jumped out at me. Wynn had sold his Vermeer to a private collector. That collector had agreed to lend the painting to New York’s Metropolitan Museum for a short exhibition. I was able to get to New York after my return from Germany and see this painting in New York before it went private. I was also able to avoid a trip to Las Vegas.
When leaving the Mauritshuis in The Hague (home of three Vermeers, including Girl With a Pearl Earring), I stopped to ask a docent if she knew about the age of the frames. When I told her of my interest in Vermeer, she asked if I had been to his home and studio. When I found out that Vermeer’s hometown of Delft was a short train ride away, I ran to the train station. I spent the afternoon visiting Vermeer’s house (now a dentist’s office) and the “guild,” which houses a replica of his studio and a collection of prints representing his work.
One of Vermeer’s lesser known works, Saint Praxedis, is a copy of a famous Italian painting. This painting is also in a private collection owned by a New Jersey foundation. I tried unsuccessfully to see this painting. Last year, the owner agreed to lend it to a museum in Rome as part of a Vermeer presentation. Not only was I able to see that privately-held painting, I was able to see one of the two Vermeers in Berlin that had been out on loan during my first trip to Germany.
I’ve seen the same view of the paintings that Vermeer did when he stepped back the moment he finished them. I’ve seen the incredible vermillion color used to paint the hat in The Girl in the Red Hat and I’ve seen the blue in the headband of the Girl with a Pearl Earring. My eyes saw what he did.
My journey would not have been possible without a man named Jonathan Janson and his website, www.essentialvermeer.com. It was this site that I stumbled onto while visiting the Bass Museum that cold Miami day. Janson maintains a detailed website with the history, locations, travel schedule, etc. of all the works of Vermeer. He is from Seattle but now lives in Rome. He gave me a private tour of Saint Praxedis in Rome and taught me how painters of Vermeer’s era obtained paint. Jonathan is also only one of two people I know who saw The Concert in the Gardner before it was stolen.
Janson’s website deserves your attention, time and support. There is a mechanism on the site that allows you to donate to the site any time you purchase something through amazon.com. The purchase does not have to be Vermeer or even art-related. If you are a generous soul, you can make a donation to the site directly. Please visit the site today.
As for my Vermeer journey, it is not quite finished. The Concert is still missing. Where is it? How many people know the hiding spot? Why doesn’t somebody want to collect that huge reward? A person being interviewed in Stolen makes the comment that The Concert belongs to the world and it should be available for the world to see.
I feel the same way about Johannes Vermeer.