Moça Dormindo (A Maid Asleep / A Woman Asleep / A Girl Asleep / Slapend Meisje) - Johannes Vermeer

Moça Dormindo (A Maid Asleep / A Woman Asleep / A Girl Asleep / Slapend Meisje) - Johannes Vermeer

Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nova York, Estados Unidos

OST - 87x76 - 1656-1657

Texto 1:

This picture is possibly Vermeer's first effort in the field to which he devoted nearly all of his mature career: scenes of domestic life, usually focusing on a woman's personal surroundings. It probably dates from 1656 or 1657, following Diana and Her Companions of about 1653–54, Christ in the House of Mary and Martha of about 1655, and The Procuress, dated 1656. It is likely one of the earliest works by Vermeer to have been acquired by the contemporary Delft collector Pieter Claesz van Ruijven (1624–1674), who owned all or at least most of the twenty-one paintings by Vermeer sold in the estate sale of his son-in-law, Jacob Dissius, in 1696.

It is known from technical examination that Vermeer made several changes to the picture. An x-radiograph reveals the figure of a man in the rear room, his head coincident with the mirror which, like the table below it, was added at a later stage. The man's face appears to be seen in profile, and two different hats were tried on his head. The larger hat is seen from the front, indicating that at one stage the man was coming toward the viewer. A dog stood by the open door, looking at the male visitor. The still life on the table was also substantially revised. Thus, the implication is not that a visitor is expected, but that one—to judge from the open door and the disorderly array of objects on the table—has recently left the room.

The corner of a painting on the wall above the maid shows the leg of a Cupid and a theatrical mask. Similar paintings appear in other works by Vermeer, and may be based on a painting of Cupid listed in the 1676 inventory of the artist's estate. The mask may have been included in The Met's painting to suggest that love is here unmasked. Texto do Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Texto 2:

A Girl Asleep, also known as A Woman Asleep, A Woman Asleep at Table, and A Maid Asleep, is a painting by the Dutch master Johannes Vermeer, created c. 1657.

It is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and may not be lent elsewhere under the terms of the donor's bequest.

Technical examination of the painting revealed a man in the second room and a dog looking at him. According to Liedtke, the presence of the dog would have alluded to "the sort of impromptu relationships canine suitors strike up on the street." The man and the dog were replaced with a mirror on a far wall, suggesting how the experience of the senses quickly passes, and a chair left at an angle with a pillow on it, possibly signifying indolence, together with a hint of recent company. The idea that she was recently together with someone is reinforced by the wine pitcher, the glass on its side and the possible presence of a knife and fork on the table. The Chinese bowl with fruit is a symbol of temptation, and for a Vermeer contemporary familiar with the symbolism of Dutch art of the time, the knife and jug lying open-mouthed under a gauzy material would have brought to mind more than social intercourse.

The painting was very likely owned by Vermeer's patron, Pieter van Ruijvan, who also owned The Milkmaid, which has a similar tension between the symbolism of sexual or romantic relations with maids and their presentation in a way that was more sympathetic than the established tradition.

The painting was among the large collection of Vermeer works sold on May 16, 1696, from the estate of Jacob Dissius (1653–1695). It is widely believed the collection was originally owned by Dissius' father-in-law, Pieter Claesz van Ruijven of Delft as Vermeer's major patron, then passed down to Ruijven's daughter (1655–1682), who would have left it to Dissius. The work's history from that point is unknown until its ownership by John Waterloo Wilson in Paris after 1873. It was sold on March 14, 1881, in Paris when Charles Sedelmeyer's Galerie Sedelmeyer in Paris bought it and sold it later that year to Rodolphe Kann, also of Paris. Kann owned the work until 1907. It was sold in 1908 through the Duveen Brothers of London to Benjamin Altman, and it was exhibited in New York in 1909. Altman owned the work until 1913, when it passed into the hands of the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a bequest. Trecho de texto da Wikipédia.

Nota do blog: Data 2018 / Crédito para Wikipédia.