vermeer's clients & patrons
TRANSCRIPT
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Vermeer's
Clients
and
Patrons
John
Michael
Montias
On the
basis
of newly
discovered
documents,
this article establishes with a
high
degree of probability
that
Pieter Claesz.
van
Ruijven
was Vermeer's
patron
throughout
most
of
his
career. He lent
Vermeer
200
guilders
in
1657;
his
wife left
the artist a
conditional
bequest
of
500
guilders
in
her testament
of
1665;
he
wit-
nessed
the testament
of
Vermeer's
ister
Gertruy
in
1670. There
were
twenty paint-
ings
by
Vermeer n
the estate
of
Van
Ruijven's only
daughter
and
heir,
Magdalena,
which
she owned
jointly
with
her
husband,
Jacob
Dissius. The division
of
the
estate
in
1685 shows that
paintings
by
Emanuel de
Witte,
Simon de
Vlieger,
and
Vermeer,
which had
probably
been
acquired by
Pieter van
Ruijven,
were allotted to
Jacob
Dissius'
father,
Abraham.
After
Abraham's
death
these
paintings
reverted
to his
son
Jacob.
The
backgrounds
and
collections
of
other
contemporary
clients
of
Ver-
meer,
including
the baker Hendrick van
Buyten,
are
briefly
discussed.
Finally,
it
is
conjectured
that
Vermeer had
access
to
Leyden
collectors
and
artists via his
patron
Van
Ruijven.
Pieter
Claesz. van
Ruijven
It
has
long
been known that Gerard Dou
and his
pupil
Frans
van
Mieris,
who
preceded
Vermeer
in
the
art of
fine
paint-
ing,
sold
the
bulk
of
their
paintings
to
a few
preferred
collectors
who
may
be
considered
their
patrons.1
From cir-
cumstantial
evidence,
which I
think the reader will find
compelling,
I will
show that Vermeer also had a
patron,
named Pieter Claesz. van
Ruijven,
during
the
greater
part
of his career. Van
Ruijven
lent Vermeer
money
and
his wife
left him
a
bequest
in
her
testament.
Van
Ruijven
was
the
father-in-law
of
Jacob
Dissius
in
whose collection
Abraham Bredius found nineteen
paintings by
Vermeer a
century ago.2
Pieter Claesz. van
Ruijven
was
a
first cousin of
Jan
Her-
mansz. van
Ruijven
who
married Christina
Delff,
the sister
of the
painter
Jacob
Delff and the
granddaughter
of
Michiel
van
Miereveld.3
Jan
Hermansz.'s
grandfather,
Pieter
Joos-
tensz. van
Ruijven,
having
sided with the
Remonstrants
during
the Oldenbarnevelt
episode
of
1618,
was barred
by
Stadhouder
Maurits
from
appointment
to
any higher
state
or
municipal
functions.
It
is
probable
that Pieter
Claesz.
himself,
like other
members
of
his
family,
was a Remon-
strant. His
father,
Niclaes Pietersz. van
Ruijven,
was
a
brewer in The Ox
brewery
and a
master
of
Delft's
Camer
van Charitate
(in
1623 and
1624).
His
mother,
Maria Gras-
winckel,
the
daughter
of
Cornelis
Jansz.
Graswinckel and
Sara
Mennincx,
belonged
to
one
of
the most
distinguished
of
Delft's
old
patrician
families. Two of
Sara Mennincx's
sisters,
Maria and
Oncommera,
were marriedin
succession
to
Franchois
Spierinx,
the
famous
tapestry-maker
of Flem-
ish
origin
who settled in Delft
some time before
1600. The
son of Franchois
Spierinx
and
Oncommera
Mennincx,
named Pieter
Spierincx
Silvercroon,
became
Sweden's en-
voy
to
Holland.
It
was
this same Pieter
Spierincx
who
paid
Gerard
Dou an annual
fee
of
500
guilders
in
the
late 1630'sto
secure
the
right
of
first
refusal
on one
painting
per year.4
Dou's
patron
was
thus
the
son
of
Pieter
Claesz. van
Ruij-
ven's
great-aunt.
He
was also
the
godfather
of Pieter
Claesz.'s
sister
Pieternella who was
baptized
in the New
Church
in
Delft
on
9
May
16425
when
Pieter
Claesz. was
eighteen years
old.
Living
as
he did in
his
parents'
house-
hold,
he could not have failed to
meet his
mother's
first
1
All
documents about
Vermeer
published
before 1977 that are
referred
to in this article are summarizedin Blankert. The dates of Vermeer'spaint-
ings
cited
in
the text are from this
source
and from
Wheelock.
In
revising
this
article,
I
benefited from the
comments of Professor
Egbert
Haver-
kamp-Begemann.
2
Abraham
Bredius,
Iets
over
Johannes Vermeer,
Oud-Holland,
III, 1885,
222.
There were
actually
twenty
paintings
by
Vermeer
in
the Dissius Col-
lection,
as discussed
below.
3The
genealogy
of
Pieter Claesz.
van
Ruijven
is
traced
in
Nederlandsche
leeuw, LXXXVII,970,
101-04.
I
owe this
reference
to Mr.
W.A.
Wijburg,
who has
been able
to
establish that
Vermeer's
wife,
Catharina
Bolnes,
and
Pieter
Claesz. van
Ruijven
were
distantly
related. To be
precise,
Adriaen
Cool,
who was
the
son
of
Catharina
Bolnes's
great-grandaunt
Maria
Gee-
nen,
had married Erckenraad
Duyst
van
Voorhoudt,
who
was the
great-
granddaughter
of
Hendrick
Duyst
(d. 1530).
The brother
of
Hendrick
Duyst, named Dirck Duyst, was the great-grandfatherof Pieter Claesz.'s
grandmother
Sara Mennincx.
In
this
case,
I would
guess
that the re-
ligious
gap separating
the
families of
Pieter
van
Ruijven
and
Catharina
Bolnes
-
he
was
Calvinist,
she
was Roman Catholic
with
Jesuit
sym-
pathies
-
was more
important
than their distant
kinship.
4Naumann,
ii,
25-27,
and
Jan
van
Gelder
and
Ingrid
Jost, Jan
de
Bischop
and His Icones and
Paradigmata;
Classical
Antiquities
and
Italian
Draw-
ings for
Artistic Instruction in Seventeenth
Century
Holland,
Dornspijk,
1985,
42.
5
Delft Gemeente Archief
-
henceforth Delft
G.A. - Old
Church,
Bap-
tism files.
Pieter
Spierincx's
mother,
Oncommera
Mennincx,
was
a
witness
at the
baptism
of Pieter Claesz.'s sister Sara
on
27
April
1631. The
only
female
witness,
she was most
probably
Sara's
godmother.
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VERMEER'S PATRONS
69
cousin
at least on this occasion.
Pieter
Spierincx
died
in
1652,
one
year
before Vermeer
enteredthe Guild
of St. Luke
in
Delft.
Pieter Claesz.
van
Ruijven,
born
in December
1624,6
was
eight years
older than Vermeer.
He is
not
known to have
had
any
trade or
profession.
Like his
father before
him,
his
only
municipal
function
was to be a master of the
Camer
van Charitate (from 1668 to
1674).7
He and his wife, Maria
Simonsdr.
de
Knuijt,
whom
he
married
in
August
1653,8
presumably
inherited most of their
wealth,
which
they
later
augmented
by
judicious
investments.
It
was
perhaps through
Pieter
van
Ruijven's
brother,
the
Notary
Johan
or
Jan
van
Ruijven,
before
whom Vermeer
and Catharina
Bolnes
appeared
on the
day
of their be-
trothal,9
that
the
artist
met his future
patron.
The
first
cer-
tain
contact between
Pieter van
Ruijven
and Vermeer
oc-
curred
in 1657
when
Pieter lent
Johannes
and Catharina
200
guilders.
10
This
loan
may
have been
an advance toward
the
purchase
of
one or more
paintings.
The
sale
of
the Girl
Asleep
at a Table
generally
dated
1657-58,
of The
Officer
and the Laughing Girl of 1658-59, of The Little Street of
1658-60,
and of
the
Women
Reading
a Letter
in
Dresden
of
1659-60,
all four of
which turned
up
in the auction of
Dis-
sius'
paintings
in
1696
and had almost
certainly
once be-
longed
to Pieter
van
Ruijven, may
have
helped
to
repay
the loan
of 1657.11
On 19 October
1665,
Pieter
Claesz. van
Ruijven
and
Maria
de
Knuijt
passed
their last
will
and testament
before
Notary
Nicholaes
Paets
in
Leyden.
The choice
of
a
Leyden
notary may
have
been dictated
by
the need for discretion:
the testators
stipulated
that
they
did not
wish
certain mem-
bers
of the
family,
including
the
Notary
Johan
van
Ruijven,
to learn the
disposition
of their estate. It is
probably
sig-
nificant, in view of the Van Ruijven family's Remonstrant
proclivities,
that
Notary
Paets was
one of the most eminent
members of
the Remonstrant
community
in
Leyden.12
Three
separate
documents
were
drafted,
approved,
and
signed
before
Notary
Paets: a
joint
testament
of the
couple,
the
appointment
of the
guardians
to
any
child or children
left after
their
death,
and a
separate
testament
of
Maria
de
Knuijt,
which
would
only
become valid
if
she survived
her
husband.13
In the
joint
testament,
Pieter Claesz. and
Maria,
living
on the east side of the Oude Delft
canal in
Delft,
named
each other
universal
legatees.
The
survivor must
bring up
any
child
or children left
after the decease of one or
the
other
of
the testators.
(This
clause
probably
referred
to
Magdalena van Ruijven, the only child of the couple left
alive after their
death,
who was
exactly
ten
years
old at
this
time.)14
This same survivor must also
give
6,000
guil-
ders
in
one sum
to
this
child or children. In the second
document,
they
named Gerrit van der
Wel,
notary
in
Delft,
as
guardian
of their
surviving
child or children. In case of
his death
or
absence,
the
secretary
of
the
Orphan
Chamber
in
Delft was
to
be
appointed
in
his
place,
with the
authority
to
name a substitute to
replace
him.
They specifically
ex-
cluded
Jan
Claesz. van
Ruijven,
notary
in
Delft,
or
any
of
the
testator's
nephews
or
cousins
from the
guardianship
-
and from
any knowledge regarding
the succession. The tes-
tator recalled that his maternal
grandmother
Sara Men-
nincx, widow of Cornelis Jansz. Graswinckel, had left her
property
to him and
to
his
descendants
in fidei
commissary
(in
perpetual
trust)
but
that,
in defiance of her
testament,
his father
Claes Pietersz. van
Ruijven
had
appropriated
these assets
to himself and sold them.
Nevertheless,
he did
not
wish to
bring
suit over this alienation to
reappropriate
the
goods
to which
he
and his
descendants
were entitled.
After the death of the survivor of the two
testators,
the
testament
read,
the
guardians
of the children should
put
away
and
preserve
the
linen,
gold,
silver,
and other
similar
wares
in
the estate
to turn it over to them after
they
had
reached
legal
age
or
gotten
married.
The
testators
further
stipulated
that the Masters of the
Orphan
Chamber
and
the guardians should dispose of the paintings ( de schilder
konst ),
which would
be
found
in
the house
of the de-
ceased,
according
to the
dispositions specified
in
a certain
book marked
with the letter
A,
on
which would be
written
Disposition
of
my
'Schilderkonst'
and other
matters.
They
wished this
book to be
considered
an
integral part
of
the
testament.
6
Pieter Claesz.
van
Ruijven,
son
of Niclaes Pietersz.
van
Ruijven
and
Maria
Graswinckel,
was
baptized
in the Old Church
on
10
December
1624. The
witnesses were Hermanus
van
der Ceel
(the
notary
of Vermeer's
father's
family
from 1620 to
1626),
Baertge
Adams,
and Adriana
Mun-
nincx.
(Delft
G.A.,
Old
Church,
Baptism
files.)
Adriana Munnincx was
probably a sister of Pieter Spierincx'smother, Oncommera.
7
Nederlandsche
leeuw,
xxIx,
1911,
col. 198. The
family's brewery
busi-
ness
seems
to
have
failed some
time
after
Niclaes Pietersz.'s death
(ca.
1650).
(Delft
G.A.,
records
of
Notary
W.
Assendelft
no.
1867,
12
August
1658.)
8
Delft
G.A.,
Betrothal
and
Marriage
files.
9
Blankert,
doc.
no. 10 of 5
April
1653,
146.
10
Ibid.,
doc.
no. 15 of
30 November
1657,
146. On Vermeer's
financial
circumstances
in
the
period
1653-57,
see
J.M.
Montias,
Vermeerand His
Milieu,
Conclusion
of an Archival
Study,
Oud-Holland,
xciv,
1980,
46-
47.
11
Blankert,
doc.
no.
62
of 16
May
1696,
153-54.
The
dates
I
have
assigned
to Vermeer's
paintings
are
those
given
in
Blankert and Wheelock. The
dates
in
these
and
other
sources are based
on
the
artist's
stylistic
evolution,
from
which
their
probable
sequencing
is inferred.
The
assumption implicit
in
these dates
is that
the
evolution of Vermeer's
style
from
1656
to
1668
and
from 1668
to
1675
(the
only
dates for which we have
evidence)
was
steady
through
time.
12Pieter van
Ruijven
was no
stranger
to
Leyden.
About the time he drew
up
his
testament,
he
was involved
locally
in
a suit over the
purchase
of
shares
in
the United
East India
Company
that
had
belonged
to
the
wealthy
estate of
Johannes
Spiljeurs
(Delft
G.A.,
records
of
Notary
W.
van As-
sendelft,
May
1663,
act no.
3316,
and
Leyden
G.A.
Rechterlijk
Archief
92,
fol.
202,
cited
in a
letter
from
P.J.M.
de Baar
to
the
author).
13
Leyden
G.A.,
records
of
Notary
N. Paets no.
676,
19
October
1665,
acts nos.
97, 98,
and 99.
14
Magdalena
van
Ruijven,
daughter
of Pieter
van
Ruijven
and Maria
van
Ruijven
(who
often used her husband's name instead of her
own),
was
baptized
in the
Old Church
on 12
October 1655. The witnesses were
Jan
van
Ruijven
(the
notary),
Maria
van
Ruijven
(the
sister of Pieter
Claesz.),
and
Machtelt de
Knuijt
(almost
certainly
the sister of Maria
de
Knuijt);
Delft
G.A.,
Old
Church,
Baptism
files.
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70
THE ART BULLETIN
MARCH
1987
VOLUME LXIX NUMBER
1
In
the
testament
of Maria
de
Knuijt,
which
would
only
acquire
validity
in case of her husband's
predecease,
the
testatrix
approved
the two
previous
acts
and
named as her
universal
heir
her child
or
children
and their
descendants.
If
she
left
no
child or children
after her
husband's
death,
then her
property
should
be divided
into three
equal
parts:
one
third she
bequeathed
to
the
Orphan
Chamber
of Delft
to aid the poor, another third to the Camer van Charitate
also
for the
support
of the
poor,
and the
last third
to
the
Preachers
of
the True Reformed
Religion
in
Delft
who
were
to
distribute
them
in
turn
to
expelled preachers
hav-
ing
studied
the
Holy
Theology. '5
Saraand Maria van
Ruij-
ven,
sisters
of her
husband,
Pieter van
Ruijven,
would be
permitted
to
enjoy
the
usufruct
of all
her
property
their life
long
and to
chose
among
her household
goods any
that
they
might
wish to
have,
with the
exception
of the best
schilderkonst.
Finally,
she
made various
bequests
in
the
aforesaid
case,
which
I
interpret
to
mean
in case
she
were
to die
childless.
If this
interpretation
is
correct,
the
bequests
that
follow
were to be made before
the rest
of the
estate
was divided into three equal parts.
Maria de
Knuijt
left
6,000
guilders
to
the
children
of
her
late
brother
Vincent
de
Knuijt
and
after
their
death
to their
descendants;
6,000
guilders
to Floris
Visscher,
her hus-
band's
nephew
or
cousin,
merchant
in
Amsterdam, and,
after his
death,
to his
descendants;
1,000
guilders
to
the
surgeon
Johannes
Dircxz.
de
Geus, and,
after his
death,
to
his
descendants;
and
500
guilders
to
Johannes
Vermeer,
painter.
Following
the
bequest
to
Vermeer,
the
following
words were crossed
out: In case
of
his
[Vermeer's]
pre-
decease,
neither
to his
children nor
to
his
descendants.
They
were
replaced
by
the
marginal
addition:
However,
in case of his
predecease
the
above aforesaid
bequest
will
be annulled ( sall 't voors. legaet te niet zijn ). The dif-
ferent
wording
had the effect
of
excluding
Catharina
Bolnes
from
the succession.
Of all these conditional
bequests,
the
one
to Vermeer was
then
the
only
one that was
clearly
re-
served
for
him and him alone.
The reason for this
discrim-
ination was
perhaps
that
Maria de
Knuijt,
whose
sympa-
thies
with the Reformed
Church were
clearly expressed
in
the
disposition
of the
bulk of
her
estate
if
she
died
childless,
did
not
wish
any
of her
money
to benefit
Jesuits
or
Jesuit
sympathizers.
While
I do not know the
precise
family
re-
lationship
between
the testatrix and the
surgeon
De
Geus,
I infer that such a
relationship
existed from
the burial of
two
of his children
in the
family plot
of Pieter
Claesz. van
Ruijvenand Maria de Knuijt.16 ohannesVermeerwas then
the
only
individual
who did not
belong
to Pieter van
Ruijven's
or to Maria
de
Knuijt's
family
who was
singled
out
for
a
special
bequest.
This is a
rare,
perhaps
unique,
instance
of
a
seventeenth-century
Dutch
patron's
testa-
mentary
bequest
to an artist.
This
token
of
affection
to-
gether
with the
repeated
mentions
of
the
schilderkonst
they
owned
suggest
that Pieter van
Ruijven
and
Maria
de
Knuijt
had
bought
a number of
paintings
by
Vermeer
by
1665
when this testament was made.
I have already speculated that several paintings in the
Dissius sale
of
1696
probably
entered the Van
Ruijven
col-
lection
shortly
after
they
were
painted
in the
late
1650's.
From 1660
to
1665 other
pictures
that
eventually
descended
to
Jacob
Dissius
may
have
been
acquired
by
the Van
Ruijvens, including
The
Milkmaid
of
about
1660,
The
Con-
cert
in
the Isabella
Gardner
Museum
(about
1664-65),
and
the
very large
View
of Delft
generally
dated
1663. It is also
probable
that three
paintings by
Emanuel
de Witte and
four
paintings by
Simon de
Vlieger,
which also turned
up
in
the
Dissius
inventory,17
belonged
to the best
schilderkonst
consigned
in
the
little
book marked
A
(which
has
unfor-
tunately disappeared).
Van Ruijven and his wife, passionate collectors though
they may
have
been,
were
wealthy
enough
to
buy
paintings
without
denting
their fortune.
On
11
April
1669,
Willem,
Baron
of
Renesse
(or
Renaisse),
put up
for sale at auction
the domain
of
Spalant,
consisting
of
twenty-and-a-half
morgen
of land situated near
the
village
of
Ketel,
not
far
from Schiedam.
With the domain that
occupied
more than
half
the
Seigneury
of
Spalant
came
the
title
of Lordof
Spa-
lant. The
property
was
bought
by
Pieter Claesz.
for
16,000
guilders.18
When he witnessed
the last
will and
testament
of the framemaker
Anthony
van der Wiel
and of his wife
Gertruy
Vermeer
(the
artist's
sister, 1620-70)
in
their home
ten months
later,
he
proudly
called
himself
Lord of
Spa-
lant.19
He may have been there simply to buy frames, but
he is
more
likely
to have attended the act
to
promote
or
protect
Vermeer's
interests.
(In
her testament
Gertruy
left
400
guilders
to her
heirs
ab
intestato,
who
probably
con-
sisted
exclusively
of
Vermeer,
in
case she
predeceased
her
husband
-
as she
actually
did.)
The
only
known
testamentary
provisions
made
by
Pieter
van
Ruijven
and his
wife after
the
will
they
had
passed
before
Notary
Paets
in
Leyden
was
a codicil dated
June
1674.20
By
this time
Van
Ruijven
was said
to reside
in
The
Hague
but
to be
lodged
on the Voorstraet
in Delft
(where
he is known to have
owned a
house).21
After
confirming
the
validity
of the
Leyden
will of
1665,
he noted
that,
since
that time, he had bought the domain of Spalant and reg-
istered
the feud
in his name. He
now
bequeathed
the
Seig-
neury
to his
daughter
after
his
death,
subject
to his wife's
15
These were
Rpformed
preachers
who
had
been
expelled
from
Habsburg
Bohemia,
France,
and other
Catholic
territories.
16
Beresteyn,
148.
17
See
the
discussion below.
18
Delft
G.A.,
records
of
Notary
W.
van
Assendelft
of 11
April
1669,
act
no.
3663.
19
Delft
G.A.,
records of
Notary
G.
van Assendelft
no.
2128,
fol.
314-
15v,
11
February
1670.
20
Delft
G.A.,
records
of
Notary
A.
van
de
Velde
of 30
June
1674,
fol.
377.
21
Delft
G.A.,
Huizen
protocol,
Pt.
III,
no.
3439/491A,
fol.
767.
The other
house,
situated
on
the
Oude
Delft,
is
recorded
in
pt.
III,
no.
4128/1180A,
fol. 923.
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VERMEER'S
PATRONS 71
enjoyment
of the
usufruct
during
her life. The
daughter
in
question
was almost
certainly Magdalena.22
Jacob
Dissius
Pieter
van
Ruijven
was buried on
7
August
1674,23
sev-
enteen months
before the artist whom he
had
protected,
and
most
probably
befriended,
for the
greater part
of his
career. Pieter Claesz.'s
daughter Magdalena
marriedJacob
Abrahamsz. Dissius on 14
April
1680.24
The
marriage
con-
tract has not been
preserved.
This is too bad
because
it
may
have been the
key
to the settlement of
Magdalena's
estate
after her
death,
which will
be discussed
below. The con-
jecture,
which I
owe to
S.A.C. Dudok van
Heel,
is that
Jacob's father,
Abraham
Dissius,
who owned
the
printing
press
The
Golden
ABC
on
the Market
Square,
may
have
given
him the
press
as a sort of
dowry
in order to
redress
the
inequality
of
wealth between his son and his
bride-to-
be.
Magdalena
had
already
inherited
considerable
assets,
including
the
domain of
Spalant,
from
her
father,
subject
to
her
mother's
right
of
usufruct.
Jacob,
who
was
twenty-
seven years old at the time of his marriage,25 ad no means
of
his
own;
he
had
registered
in
the
Guild of St. Luke as
a
bookbinder
in
1676. He did not
register
in
the
guild
as a
bookseller
-
thus
presumably
as the owner of a book-
selling
establishment
-
until
six months after his
marriage,
in
November
1680.26
Even
then he had so
little
money
that,
when his wife
died two
years
later,
he had to borrow
from
his father to
pay
her
ordinary
death debts
(costs
of
burial,
mourning
clothes,
and so
forth).27
Jacob's
main asset was
his
distinguished
Protestant
background:
he was the
grand-
son of
Minister
Jacobus
Dissius,
pastor
in
Het
Wout,
near
Delft,
and of
Maria
von
Starrenberg.28
On December 3 of the same
year,
1680,
the
young
couple
passed their testament before a notary in Delft.29They
named each
other
universal
heirs,
subject
to the
usual
pro-
vision
that
the
survivor
must
bring
up
their
child or chil-
dren in
an
appropriate
manner.
If the
testator remarried
after
his
wife's
death,
he
obligated
himself to
pay
her mother
(Maria
de
Knuijt),
if
she was still
alive,
500
guilders,
and
if
she was
already
dead,
her relatives and collateral
des-
cendants 200
guilders.
On the other
hand,
if
they
both
died
without
children and without
having
remarried while their
parents
on
either
side were still
alive,
then
they
willed that
their
estate,
including
the domain of
Spalant,
be
divided
into two
equal parts,
the
parents
on
each side
receiving
half. In the case of
the domain of
Spalant,
however,
the
division
was not to be effected until the death of Maria
de
Knuijt
(who
was entitled to the
domain's
usufruct).
Mag-
dalena
van
Ruijven,
then
referring
explicitly
to the
twenty-
and-a-half
morgen
in
Spalant
with
which she had
been
vested in December 1680 and of which she was therefore
entitled
to
dispose, subject
to her mother's
usufruct,
willed
that
after her
death the domain should be
assigned
to
her
beloved
husband
Jacob
Abrahamsz. Dissius. To
give
ef-
fect
to this
provision,
she
wished
that,
at the
first
oppor-
tunity,
his name should be inscribed in the
register
of
feuds
in
place
of her name so
that
he should
enjoy
the fruits
and
rents of the domain
immediately
after her mother's
death.
No
special
provision
was
made
for the
paintings
or
for
any
other of
the
couple's
household
goods.
Three months
later,
on 26
February
1681,
Maria de
Knuijt
was buried
next
to
her
husband
in
the
family plot
in the
Old
Church.30 Her
daughter Magdalena
did not survive
her
long. She was only twenty-seven years old when she died
on
16
June
1682.31
She
seems
to have left no
surviving
child.
Jacob
Dissius was the
apparent
heir of the
entire
Van
Ruijven
estate,
including
the
paintings.
Nine
months after the death of
Magdalena
Pieters van
Ruijven,
an
inventory
was
prepared
of the
property
left
to
her
husband,
Jacob
Dissius,
in
which
twenty
works
by
Ver-
meer were recorded
(one
more than
Bredius
reported).32
I
presume
that the bulk of the
estate,
including
the household
goods
and
paintings,
had
been inherited
by
Magdalena
from
her
father,
Pieter Claesz..
The
inventory
drawn
up
almost a
year
after the
death
of
Magdalena
van
Ruijven
listed all the
goods,
movable
and unmovable, accruing to Jacob Dissius both in his own
right
and as inherited
through
the
death
of his wife.
Among
the
principal
assets were the domain
of
Spalant,
numerous
interest-bearing obligations
in
the name
of
Maria
de
Knuijt
bought
between 1663 and
1674,
and the rental
money
-
175
guilders
per
year
-
on
the house
in the
Voorstraet,
all
this of
course devolved
from
Magdalena.
The
only
asset
that was
explicitly
said
to
belong
to
Jacob
Dissius in
his
own
right
was a
life
annuity
yielding
100
guilders per year.
The
principal
liability
of the estate was the 400
guilders
that
22
A
daughter
of Pieter
Claesz. van
Ruijven
and Maria
de
Knuijt
named
Maria was
baptized
on 22
July
1657 in the Old Church. A son named
Simon
was
baptized
in
the
same church
on
27
January
1662
(Delft G.A.,
Old
Church,
Baptism
files).
Both
these children must
have died
early
since
no other heir beside
Magdalena
was ever mentioned.
23
Beresteyn,
418.
24
Delft
G.A.,
Betrothal and
Marriage
files.
25
Jacob
Dissius was
baptized
in
the New Church on 23
November 1653.
His
grandfather
Jacobus
Dissius and his
aunt
Jannetje
Dissius
were
wit-
nesses
(Delft G.A.,
New
Church,
Baptism
files).
26
The
registrations
in
the
guild
of
Jacob
Dissius,
his
father
Abraham,
and
his
uncle
Jacob
Jacobsz.
are cited
in
F.D.O.
Obreen,
Archief
voor Ned-
erlandsche
kunstgeschiedenis,
Rotterdam, 1877,
I,
52, 58, 83,
86.
27
Delft
G.A.,
records
of
Notary
P. de Bries no.
2325,
act no.
31,
early
April
1683,
partly published
in
Bredius
(as
in
n.
2).
28
Jacob's
uncle Karel
Dissius,
who dealt in
gloves
and other
apparel,
was
married to Machtelt
de
Langue,
the niece
of
Willem
Reyersz.
de
Langue,
the
notary,
collector,
and
friend of the
Vermeer
family.
These
and other
kinship
relations in
the Dissius
family
can be
traced
from
a
document
relating
to the sale of a
house
belonging
to
the De
Langue family
in
the
records
of
Notary
T.
van Hasselt
no.
2151,
9
August
1660
(Delft
G.A.).
29
Delft
G.A.,
records
of
Notary
D. van der
Hoeve
no. 2359 of 20
June
1682,
act no. 26. This
act contains the
testament
of
3
December
1680,
which was
opened
and read on
20
June
1682.
30
Beresteyn,
148.
31
The Dissius
inventory
of
April
1683
(see
n. 27
above),
cites the
exact
date
of
Magdalena's
death.
32
Doc.
cited
in
n. 27
above.
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MARCH 1987 VOLUME
LXIX NUMBER
1
Dissius
had borrowed from his father to
pay
various ex-
penses
connected
with
Magdalena's
death.
After the unmovable
assets,
the
notary's
clerk listed the
movable
goods
in
each room of the Dissius house. In
the
front
hall,
he
noted
eight
paintings by
Vermeer,
together
with three
more
paintings by
Vermeer
in
boxes,
all
of un-
specified
subjects.
The
front
hall also
contained a
seascape
by
Porcellis and a
landscape.
In the back room there
were
four
paintings by
Vermeer,
two
paintings
of
churches,
two
tronien
or
faces ),
two
night
scenes,
one
landscape,
and
one [painting]
with houses. This room also
contained a
chest
with
a viola da
gamba,
a hand-held
viol,
two
flutes,
and
music books.
In the
kitchen,
which was
apparently
also
a
bedroom,
there was a
painting
by
Vermeer
(the
one
missed
by
Bredius),
two
tronien,
a
night
scene,
two
landscapes,
a little
church
and a
painter.
n
the basement room
there
were two
paintings by
Vermeer
plus
a
landscape
and
a
church. The list closed with two
paintings by
Vermeer and
two small
landscapes
whose
precise
location
in
the
house
was
not
specified.
Two
years
later, in
April
1683, the estate was divided
between
Jacob
and his
father,
Abraham
Dissius.33
The in-
troduction
to this
notarial document
setting
forth the
terms
of the division stated
that
Jacob
Abrahamsz. Dissius and
Magdalena
Pieters
van
Ruijven
had
owned
the
goods
in
the
estate
in
common
and that
Magdalena
had left as her heir
her
father-in-law Abraham
Jacobsz.
Dissius
in
confor-
mity
with
her testament of December 3 and the act of su-
perscription
of 10 December 1680.
Actually,
the
testament,
confirmed
by
the act
of
superscription,
had named
the sur-
vivor of the two
testators as
universal
heir.
Magdalena's
father-in-law Abraham Dissius was
only
to
inherit the bulk
of
the estate
in
case
both
testators died
without
children,
neitherhaving remarried,and Magdalena'smotherwas also
deceased. Maria de
Knuijt
had indeed
died,
and
Magdalena
had
left
no
children, but,
since
Jacob
was
very
much
alive,
it is not
immediately
obvious
why
he had to
give
up
half
of the
estate
to his
father.
I
have
already
cited S. A.
C.
Dudok van
Heel's
suggestion
that the
marriage
contract
may
have contained a clause that allowed Abraham to
share
in his
daughter-in-law's
estate.
In
any
event,
the
succession
had not
proceeded
without
controversy.
It
was
only
after
Magdalena's
heirs
ab
intestato,
who
must have included
her
husband,
her father's sisters Sara and
Maria,
and her
mother's brother Vincent
de
Knuijt,
had
appeared
with
Abraham Dissius before the commissioners of the
High
Court of Holland on 18 July 1684 and again on 16 February
1685 that the decision
was
handed down
that
prescribed
the division
of
the estate half and half between Abraham
Dissius and his son
Jacob.
It was
probably
also the com-
missioners who had
stipulated precisely
how the
division
would have
to
be
made.
All
the movable
goods
in
the
estate,
including
the
print-
ing press,
were
divided
into two
lots. The household
goods
in
the
estate,
starting
in
the
inventory
of 1683
with
a
lot
of
firewood
and
ending
with two black
hats,
would ac-
crue to lot
A,
with the
exception
of
fourteen
paintings
that
would be transferred to lot B. Lot B consisted
chiefly
of
the
printing
establishment and the
equipment going
with
it. The
paintings
that were to be
transferred from lot
A
to
lot B
were:
three
landscapes
by
S. de
Vlieger,
three
temples
or
churches
by
Emanuel
de
Witte,
two
portraits
or tro-
nien,
and six
paintings by
Johannes
Vermeer to be chosen
from lot A
by
the
individual
who would
receive lot B.
Of the four
paintings
of
churches
in
the
inventory
of
1683,
the 1685
disposition
of the estate
assigned
three
by
Emanuel de Witte
to lot B. At
least one
of the
three,
and
probably
two,
adorned the back
room with
the
four
paint-
ings
by
Vermeer that
were
said to
hang
there.34
Of
the seven
landscapes
in
the
inventory,
three
by
Simon
de
Vlieger
had
similarly
been shifted to lot B.
When the two
principal
heirs,
father and
son,
chose
among
the
lots
by
chance,
lot A
fell to
Jacob
and lot B to
his father Abraham.
Nine
years
later,
on
12 March
1694,
Abraham
Dissius
was buried
in
the New
Church.35
His
property,
including
the fourteen
paintings
that
had been transferred
from lot
A
to lot
B,
were
presumably
inherited
by
his
son
Jacob,
who seems to have been his universal heir.36
Jacob
Dissius himself died
in
October
1695. The widower
on
the
Market
Square
in
The
Golden
ABC was
trans-
ported
by
coach,
with
eighteen pallbearers,
to
his
family's
resting place
in
Het
Wout.37
Six
months later an advertise-
ment appeared in Amsterdam announcing an auction con-
taining twenty-one paintings by
Vermeer
extraordinarily
vigorously
and
delightfully painted. 38
This number was
one more than that listed in the
inventory
of 1683.
Clearly,
Jacob
must
have
bought
back,
or
inherited,
from his father
the six
paintings by
Vermeer that had fallen
to
Abraham's
lot. How did
the
Dissius collection
expand
from
twenty
to
twenty-one
Vermeers between 1685
and 1695?
Perhaps
the
twenty-first
was there all
along.
It is
possible
that the
painting
with
houses
in
the
inventory
of
1683 was iden-
tical with The Little
Street,
now in the
Rijksmuseum,
in
which case it would have been omitted
by
error
from
the
list of
paintings
attributed
to
Vermeer.
The top prices for the twenty-one paintings by Vermeer
sold in Amsterdam on 16
May
1696 were 155
guilders
for
the
Young
Lady
Weighing
Gold
(The
Woman
with
the
Balance),
175
guilders
for the Maid
Pouring
Out Milk
33
Delft
G.A.,
records
of
Notary
P. de Bries no.
2327,
between
14
and 20
April
1685.
34
The
clerk
had
initially specified
that one of the
church
paintings
in the
backroom
portrayed
a
burial.
This is
likely
to
have
been the Grave of
the Old
Prince
in
Delft
by
De Witte
in
the
Dissius sale of 1696
(doc.
cited
in n.
39
below).
3s
Delft
G.A.,
New
Church,
Burial files.
36
Jacob
seems to have been the
only
one of six children fathered
by
Abra-
ham Dissius who
survived
infancy.
It is
worth
noting
that
Jacob
Dissius,
in
his
testament
of 7
February
1684,
made
his
father
his
universal heir
(Delft G.A.,
records of
Notary
P.
de
Bries,
no.
2326,
act no.
15).
37
Blankert,
doc. no. 62 of 14
October
1695,
154.
38
Ibid.
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VERMEER'S PATRONS
73
(The
Milkmaid)
and 200
guilders
for The
City
of
Delft
in
Perspective
(The
View
of Delft).39
All
three survive to
this
day. Only
two
relatively expensive
paintings
have
disap-
peared:
one In which
a
gentleman
is
washing
his hands
in
a
see-through
room,
with
sculptures,
and A
gentleman
and a
young lady
making
music,
which
sold for 95
and
81
guilders respectively.
The lowest
prices
were for
tro-
nien,
including
two for
17
guilders
each. The small but
accomplished
Lace
Maker
only brought
28
guilders.
It
may
be noted
in
passing
that
only
one of
the
paintings
by
Vermeer
in
the Amsterdam sale
(the
first listed in
the
catalogue)
was
in
a
case
or box. This
was
the
Young Lady
'Weighing
Gold,
more
properly
called Woman with a
Bal-
ance,
in the
National
Gallery
of
Art,
Washington.
It
must
have
been one of the three
paintings
by
Vermeer
in
boxes
in
the
front
hall
of
the
Dissius house.
Not all
paintings by
Vermeer owned
by
Dissius had been
acquired
by
Pieter van
Ruijven.
The
Woman with a
Pearl
Necklace of
Berlin-Dahlem,
which is
very likely
to
have
been
listed
in
Vermeer's death
inventory
of 1676
as a
Womanwith a
necklace,' 40
was
probably bought
from his
widow
after the
artist's death either
by Magdalena
van
Ruijven
or
by
Jacob
Dissius.
Since
this
picture
is
generally
dated
1664-65,
in
any
case before The
Astronomer of
1668,
it
follows
that,
whatever
arrangement
Pieter
van
Ruijven
had made with
Vermeer,
it
did not
call
for
the
immediate
transfer of all
newly completed
works.
Some of
the
paintings by
Vermeer sold in
1696
may
have
entered the
collection of
Van
Ruijven
between the
latter's
testament of
1665
and his
death,
including
the
Young
Lady
Writing
a
Letter
in
the
National
Gallery
of
Art,
Washing-
ton,
The Lace Maker in the
Louvre,
and
either the
Lady
Standing
at
the
Virginals
or
the
Lady
Sitting
at the
Virgin-
als, both in the National
Gallery,
London, all of which are
generally
dated in
the 1670's. Van
Ruijven
may
also
have
acquired
one
or more of the
Vermeer
tronien
in
the
sale
of
1696
during
the four or five
years
preceding
the
artist's
death.
Catharina
Bolnes
may
have been
exaggerating
when
she
claimed
that her
husband had sold
very
little or
hardly
anything
at
all
since
1672.41
The
catalogue
of the
sale of 16
May
1696
opened
with
twelve
paintings
by
Vermeer.
They
were
followed
by
three
paintings
by
Emanuel de
Witte:
The
Old Church in Am-
sterdam,
The
Tomb of the
Old
Prince,
and another
church.
These were almost
certainly
among
the
fourteen
paintings
transferred from lot A to lot B in
the Dissius in-
ventory. None of the next fifteen pictures listed by various
Dutch and Italian
painters
would seem to be
identical with
paintings
described in
the
inventory
of 1683. Then came
nine lots
by
Vermeer,
starting
with The
city
of
Delft in
perspective.
These were
followed
by
a
large
landscape
by
Simon de
Vlieger
and
three other
landscapes by
the
same
artist. These are
all
likely
to have
belonged
to Dissius.
The
next
painting
listed after the four
De
Vliegers
was a
tronie
by
Rembrandt,
which
only
sold
for seven
guilders,
five
stuivers.
It
may
have been
one of the two tronien
trans-
ferred from lot A to
lot B in 1685. None of
the
paintings
listed
after the
Rembrandt tronie
appears
to
have be-
longed
to Dissius in
1683.
The
twenty-one
Vermeers in the
sale
brought
a
total
of
1,503
guilders,
ten
stuivers;
the three
by
Emanuel de
Witte,
160
guilders;
and the four
landscapes
by
De
Vlieger,
125
guilders,
fifteen stuivers.
The
grand
total came
to
1,796
guilders,
ten stuivers
(including
the Rembrandt
tronie ),
a
very
respectable
sum,
even
by
Amsterdam
standards.
Clearly, though,
not all the
paintings
recorded in the
Dis-
sius
inventory
of
1683
were sold in 1696.
There was
nothing
in
the
catalogue resembling
the
Porcellis
seascape,
the three
night
scenes,
and the
painter.
Moreover,
there were
only
threeof the four churches
in the
inventory,
four
of the
seven
landscapes,
and at most
one
of
the four
tronien.
(It
is
possible
but
unlikely
that
some
of
the
landscapes appeared
elsewhere
in the list of
paintings
sold.)
Perhaps
only
the
best schilderkonst noted in the book marked A in the
Van
Ruijven
testament of 1665
plus
the Vermeers
acquired
after
that time were
thought good
enough
to
appear
in
the
Am-
sterdam
auction.
The rest
may
have
gone
directly
to
the
collateral heirs
of
Jacob
Dissius
(his
first cousins on his
fa-
ther's
side).
Other Collectors
Beside
the
dealer
Johannes Renialme,
the
sculptor
Jo-
hannes
Larson,
and
the
innkeeper
Cornelis de
Helt,
who
had
each
bought
an
inexpensive
picture by
Vermeer
early
in
the
artist's
career,
we
know the
names
of
three of his
clients
during
his
mature
period: Diego
Duarte,
Herman
van
Swoll,
and Hendrick van
Buyten, only
the last of whom
is known to
have
been
in
direct
contact with
Vermeer.
The rich
Antwerp
jeweler
and
banker
Diego
Duarte
owned
a
little
piece
with a
lady
playing
the clavecin
with
accessories
by
Vermeer,
estimated
at 150
guilders
in
July
1682.42
This
may
have been
either
The
Lady
Standing
or
The
Lady
Sitting
at
the
Virginals.
Whichever it
was,
the
other was in the Van
Ruijven-Dissius
collection.
In
1699 when
Herman
van
Swoll's collection
was sold
in
Amsterdam,
A
seated
woman
with
several
[symbolical
or
allegorical]
meanings
representing
the New Testament
by
Vermeer of
Delft fetched
400
guilders.43
This
painting
was
probably
identical with The
Allegory of
Faith in
the Met-
ropolitan
Museum. Since there is no evident reason
why
the
Jesuit
Station
of the
Cross
in
Delft should
have sold a
painting
at this
time,
I
suspect
that the
Van Swoll
picture
had been
originally painted
for
a
private patron
rather
than
for
the
Jesuits
themselves.
The
very
high
price
the
painting
brought
shows that
Vermeer,
when he
painted
in
the
flat,
classical mode
that was in
vogue
at the
time,
could
produce
39
The
complete
list of
paintings
sold on 16
May
1696
referred
to in
the
text
is
given
in G.
Hoet,
Catalogus of Naamlyst
van
schilderyen,
met der
selven
pryzen,
The
Hague,
1752, I,
34-36.
40
Blankert,
doc.
no.
40 of
29
February
1676,
150-51.
41
Ibid.,
doc.
no.
42 of
30
April
1676,
151.
42
Ibid.,
doc.
no.
60 of
12
July
1682,
153.
43
Ibid.,
doc.
no. 63 of 22
April
1699,
154.
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74 THE ART BULLETIN MARCH 1987 VOLUME LXIX NUMBER 1
a
painting
that
was
nearly
as valuable as
any
sold
by
the
most fashionable
painters
of
the
period.
Herman
Stoffelsz. van
Swoll,
from whose estate the Al-
legory
was
sold,
was born
in
Amsterdam
in
1632 and died
there
in
1698. The son
of
a Protestant
baker,
he made a
fortune as a controller
( suppoost )
of
the
Amsterdam
Wis-
selbank and as
postmaster
of
the
Hamburger
Comptoir
in
Amsterdam. He had a house built on the Amsterdam
Herengracht
in 1668 where he lived until his death. Nico-
laes
Berchem,
and
probably
Gerard
de
Lairesse,
painted
decorations
with
mythological
and
allegorical
figures
in
the
house. His collection contained
many
Italian
paintings
along
with
the
most
distinguished
representatives
of
mod-
ern
Dutch
art.44
These,
however,
were not
necessarily
all
originals.
It
is
known that he
employed
Nicolaes
Verkolje
(born
in
Delft
in
1673,
died
in
Amsterdam
in
1746)
to
make
copies
after
originals,
for which he
paid
twelve
guilders
per
copy.45
Our
last
collector
of
Vermeer's
works is the baker
Hen-
drick van
Buyten,
who is most
probably
identical
with
the
boulanger met by the French traveler Balthazarde Mon-
conys
in
August
1663,
on which occasion the baker showed
him a
one-figure painting by
Vermeer
for which he claimed
that
600 livres
-
presumably equivalent
to Dutch
guilders
-
had been
paid.46
Van
Buyten,
in
contrast
to
Pieter van
Ruijven,
was
of
fairly
humble
origin.
His
father,
Adriaen Hendricksz.
van
Buijten,
was a shoemaker.
After Adriaen Hendricksz. died
in
1650,
his widow sold his household effects
for
only
796
guilders.47
Hendrick himself
must have done well as a
baker,
but it was the inheritance
he received
from
his relative
Aryen
Maertensz. van Rossem
in
1669,
from which
he
ob-
tained
nearly
4,000
guilders
and a house
in
the
Oosteynde,48
that was probably the principal source of his new wealth,
which he later built
up
by lending money
at interest. It is
significant
that,
when
Monconys inquired
about
Vermeer's
paintings,
he
was steered
to
Van
Buyten,
who
apparently
had
only
one
picture
by
him,
rather
than to Pieter van
Ruijven,
who
presumably
had
at least a
half dozen of them
by
this time: the
baker,
being
a
tradesman,
was
more
likely
to sell than
the
patrician.
(The
exorbitant
price
he
claimed
he had
paid
for his
one-figure
Vermeer
may
have been in-
flated for the sake of
bargaining.)
After Hendrick van
Buyten
died in
July
1701,
leaving
a
widow but no
children,
his estate was administered
by
the
Orphan
Chamber
of
Delft. The contents
of his
boedel
in
the Delft
Orphan
Chamber
archives are distributed
among
ten bundles enclosed
in
five
large
boxes.49
Some of the
pa-
pers
date as
recently
as 1849 when
printed
notices were sent
out to a
long
list of heirs
notifying
them of the small
amounts of
interest
on
restricted
capital
funds that
they
still
had
coming
to
them
from
their
great
uncle's
inheritance.
The
inventory
of 1701 listed the movable
possessions
of
Hendrick van
Buyten
and his
wife
Adriana
Waelpot.
She
was the
daughter
of
the
printer
Jan
Pieters
Waelpot
and of
Catharina
Karelts,
and was
born
the same
year
as
Ver-
meer's
wife,
Catharina Bolnes
(1631).
Van
Buyten
was
born
the same
year
as Vermeer
(1632).
After Hendrick had
lost his first
wife,
named Machtelt van Asson
(a
baker's
daughter),
he had
married Adriana
in
November
1683.50
Adriana's father owned an
important printing press
in
Delft
comparable
to
that
of
Abraham Dissius.
From
the
presence
of the
Institution
by
Jean
Calvin
in
Van
Buyten's
inventory,
we
may safely
conclude that he
belonged
to
the established
Reformed
religion.
Thus both
Jacob
Dissius and Van
Buy-
ten were Calvinists and either owned or were connected
with
important printing
establishments.
The
marriage
contract between Hendrick and Adriana
of 6 December 1683 had
specified
that the
properties
brought
to the
marriage by
husband and wife were to re-
main
separate
( geen
gemeenschap ).
The
paintings
listed
below
were
all
part
of Van
Buyten's possessions
at
the time
of his
second
marriage.
He
had
apparently acquired
no
paintings
between 1683 and 1701. We can be
virtually
cer-
tain that he owned
no
paintings
that had
belonged
to
Jacob
Dissius
in
April
1683 and which were still
in
the Dissius
household two
years
later when the estate was divided.
The total Van
Buyten
estate was
valued at
24,829
guild-
ers, one of the largest I have seen in my study of Delft
inventories.
The first work of art listed
in the
inventory
of
Van
Buy-
ten's
household
goods
was
a
large
painting
by
Vermeer
( een
groot
stuck schilderie van
Vermeer )
n
the front hall.
(The
inventories of
Cornelis
van Helt
in
166151
nd of
Jacob
Dissius in
1683, too,
began
with
paintings
by
Vermeer
in
the
voorhuijs. )
Also in the front hall was a
painting
by
Bramer,
a
society piece
by (Anthony)
Palamedes,
another
little
painting by
Palamedes,
and
one
by
(Nicholas?)
Bronckhorst who
painted seascapes.
There were seventeen
other unattributed
paintings
in this
hall,
representing
land-
44On
Herman
van
Swoll,
see Willem
van de
Watering,
The Later
Al-
legorical Paintings
of Niclaas
Berchem,
in
Exhibition
of
Old
Master
Paintings,
Leger
Galleries, London,
1981.
I
am
indebted
to
Jennifer
Kilian
for this reference.
45
S.A.C.
Dudok van
Heel,
Hondervijftig
advertenties
van
kunstver-
kopingen
uit
veertig jaargangen
van
de Amsterdamsche
Courant,
Jaar-
boek
Amstelodamum,
LVII,
1980,
150. In the advertisement
for
the sale
of 1699 in the Amsterdamsche
Courant,
it was said the collection
had
been formed
with
great
trouble
over a
period
of
many years.
The
Al-
legory
of
the
New Testament
was
singled
out as an artful
piece by
Ver-
meer
of Delft
(ibid.,
160).
46
Blankert,
147.
47
Delft
G.A.,
Orphan
Chamber.
Estate
papers
(boedel)
no.
264 of
Ad-
riaen Hendricksz. van
Houten,
shoemaker. The
names
and
ages
of the
heirs
(Hendrick,
Emerentia,
and
Adriaen)
leave
no doubt that this Van
Houten
was
Hendrick
van
Buyten's
father.
Note,
incidentally,
that
Ad-
riaen
Hendricksz. was
acquainted
with Vermeer's father
(J.M.
Montias,
New
Documents on
Vermeer
and His
Family,
Oud-Holland,
xcI,
1977,
276).
48
Delft
G.A.,
records of
Notary
D.
Rees,
no.
2144 of
1
April
1669.
49
Delft G.A.,
Orphan
Chamber,
Estate
papers
(boedel)
no. 265
Ix.
50
Delft
G.A.,
Baptism
files,
21
September
1631,
and
Betrothal
and
Mar-
riage
files.
The betrothal
took
place
on
27 November 1683.
51
Delft
G.A.,
Orphan
Chamber,
Estate
papers
(boedel)
no. 673
I
and ii.
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VERMEER'S
PATRONS 75
scapes,
still-lifes,
and
genre
paintings,
one
history
painting
(Moses),
and one
of
the
young
Prince
Willem adorned with
flowers.
A
side room next to the front hall contained
three
landscapes by
(Pieter)
Van Asch
(next
to the
bedstead)
and
two little
pieces
by
Vermeer
( stuckjes
van
Vermeer )52
plus
eleven other
paintings,
large
and small. In a back hall
the
notary
found seven little
paintings
( stuckjes
schild-
erie )and three little
paintings
on
panel ( borretjes ).
(The
distinction was
sometimes made between schilderien
painted
on canvas and borts or
borretjes
on
panel.)
The
only
other items of
interest were
a
few
Protestant books
and two boxes for
paintings
in
the
attic,
which are
likely
to have
been those
in
which
paintings by
Vermeer
had
once
been
preserved.
(No
other
artist on the list of attributed
paintings
was
fine
enough
to have so encased his
paintings.)
It is
remarkable that all five of the
painters
cited
in
Van
Buyten's inventory
-
Vermeer, Bramer,
Anthony
Pa-
lamedes, (Nicholas) Bronckhorst,
and Pieter van Asch
-
were
born in
Delft,
became
masters
of
the local
guild,
and
died in Delft. All had registered in the guild before 1653.
Compared
to
the
Van
Ruijven-Dissius
collection,
Van
Buy-
ten's
appears
to
have been somewhat
provincial
and old-
fashioned.
(Three
out of four of
the
painters
in
the Dissius
collection at one time
registered
in
the Delft
guild,
but two
of
them
-
Simon de
Vlieger
and Emanuel de Witte
-
left
for
Amsterdam and
continued
to
be
productive
there.
Por-
cellis
was
initially
a Haarlem artist but also
worked
in
Am-
sterdam and
Soetermeer.)
The
Van
Buyten
collection
prob-
ably
had not
changed
very
much
from
the
1650's or
1660's
until
the baker's
marriage
in
1683,
with
the
likely exception
of
the
two
paintings
he had
acquired
from Vermeer'swidow
shortly
after the artist's
death as collateral
for
a
large
debt
incurred for bread delivered: the personplaying on a cit-
tern and
the
painting
representing
two
persons
one
of
whom is
sitting
writing
a
letter. '3
The
first
of these
may
be
The
Guitar
Player
in
Kenwood
or,
less
probably,
the
Woman
Playing
a
Lute
of
the
Metropolitan
Museum
of
Art.
1 Vermeer,
Lady
with Her Maidservant.
New
York,
FrickCol-
lection
(photo:
collection)
The
second is
probably
the
Lady
with
Her
Maidservant
in
the Frick
Collection
(Fig.
1).
The
latter,
which
measures 92
x
78.7cm,
is
certainly
large enough
for
the clerkwho drafted
the
inventory
to
have
perceived
it as a
groot
stuck schild-
erie. 54
The
fact that the
painting
was
apparently
left un-
finished - as the undifferentiated,excessively uniform pas-
sages,
especially
in
the main
figure, testify55
adds
to the
likelihood of
this
hypothesis, considering
that the
picture
was still
in
the
artist's studio at the
time
of his
death.
If
this was the
large
painting
in
the
front
hall,
then the
picture
52
In
another,
posterior
version
of
the same
inventory
(Delft
G.A.,
records
of W. van
Ruijven
no.
2295,
act no.
114),
the
only
difference in the
de-
scription
of the
paintings
that I
could find
was that the two
paintings by
Vermeer
in
the
room
next to the front
hall were called
stucken rather
than
stuckjes.
It is not
obvious
whether the
clerk
decided
the
paintings
were
not
as small as
he had
previously
made them out
to be or
whether
he was
inattentive
in
copying
the
original
inventory.
The diminutive
stukxken, incidentally, was applied to TheLady playing the clavecin
in
the Duarte
inventory,
which either
measured 51.7
x
45.2cm
(Lady
Standing
at
the
Virginals)
or 51.5
x
45.5cm
(Lady
Seated at
the
Virginals).
The
Guitar
Player
in
Kenwood
(53
x
46.3cm)
and
the Woman in Blue
Reading
a
Letter
(46.5
x
39cm)
were
approximately
of
the same dimensions
and
might
have
been
perceived
as
stuckjes.
(The
dimensions
are cited
from
Blankert, 160,
167,
169,
170.)
s3
Blankert,
149-50.
54
I
owe
the
suggestion
that the
large painting
in Van
Buyten's
front
hall
was
the
Frick
picture
to
Otto Naumann. On the
size of
the
Lady
With
Her
Maidservant,
see
Blankert,
164.
Willem L. van
de
Watering,
in
his
catalogue
contribution to
Blankert,
stated that the
Lady
Writing
a
Letter
with
Her Maid
in
the Beit
Collection
had been
pledged
to
Hendrick
van
Buyten
by
Vermeer's
widow
(p.
168).
The
argument
supporting
this claim
is that the
lady
in
the Beit
picture
is
actually writing,
whereas the
lady
in
the
Frick
Collection has been
interruptedby
her
maid and has
dropped
her
pen.
In
my
view,
this is
only
a small
inaccuracy
on
the
part
of the
notary's
clerk. The Frick
picture,
which is
substantially
bigger
than the
Beit Vermeer
(71
x
59cm),
is
much more
likely
to
have
been seen as a
largepainting.
The Love Letter
in
the
Rijksmuseum,
if
this
reasoning
is
correct,
would be the
picture
in
the Dissius Collection
sold
in
1696 called
Een uffrouw die door een meyd een brief gebracht wordt (A lady who
is
brought
a letter
by
a
maid).
Regarding
the
possibility
that the
person playing
on a cittern
may
have been confused
with
a lute
player
(e.g.,
the
painting
by
Vermeer
in
the
Metropolitan
Museum),
one
would have
expected
the
contemporaries
of Vermeer to know the difference between a
cittern and a lute. Never-
theless,
it should be observed that the Kenwood
picture
can be traced
back
to
a
public
sale
in
1794
when
it
was described as a
woman
playing
on
a
lute
(Blankert,
169).
Another version
of
the
Kenwood
picture
also
exists
(now
in
the
Johnson
Collection
in
Philadelphia),
which most
art
historians have deemed to be a
copy
after the Kenwood
original.
The late
hairstyle
of
the
guitar
player
in
the
Johnson
picture
(let
alone the weak
execution)
would seem to rule it out
as
a candidate
for the
painting
that
was
once
in
the
Van
Buyten
Collection.
ss
Blankert,
55.
-
7/23/2019 Vermeer's Clients & Patrons
10/10
76
THE ART BULLETIN
MARCH 1987 VOLUME LXIX NUMBER
1
of
the
person
playing
on a
cittern
was
in
the room next
to the
front
hall.
Its
companion
was
perhaps
the
one-figure
painting
that had been
shown to
Monconys
in
1663.
In
case
this
painting
was
really
a
stuckje
as
the
clerk noted in
1701,
Monconys may
have
had
good
reason
to
question
the exorbitant
price
of
600
livres that Van
Buyten
said had
been
paid
for
it.
In his testament of 18
May
1701 Van
Buyten
had left his
wife,
Adriana
Waelpot,
all
the
household
items in
the
in-
ventory
of
the
goods
that he
had contributed to the mar-
riage
for
her
lifelong
use.
However,
by
an
agreement
made
with
the
other heirs
before
Notary
Willem
van
Ruijven
(which
has not been
preserved),
she consented
to
have
these
goods
sold
at
auction
and
to
collect half
the
proceeds.
The
sale,
which
took
place
on 26
April
1702,
brought only
674
guilders,
six
stuivers.
Because
the
schedule
( contrace-
dulle )
of the sale has been
lost,
there is no
way
to
figure
out
precisely
how much the three
paintings
by
Vermeer
represented
of this
total.
Conclusions
It
may
be
confidently
concluded
from
the evidence about
Vermeer's clientele
gathered
in
this
study
that he
enjoyed
a
strong
local
reputation
during
most
of
his career. He
probably
enjoyed
some
reputation beyond
Delft as
well,
as
the
high
prices
he obtained
in
the Amsterdam sales of
the Dissius and
Swoll
collections
testify. Beyond
reputa-
tion, sales,
and the artist's
financial
success,
there is
another
side
to
patronage
that we have
not
explored
at
all so far.
A
patron
or
even an occasional client
provides
a link
to
the social world not
normally
accessible
to
an artist of mod-
est
background.
In Vermeer's
case,
he
did have the
well-
heeled,
patrician
relatives
of
his
wife,
but those Roman
Catholics apparently did not collect art or at least did not
buy
from him.
Van
Ruijven
and Van
Buyten,
as well
per-
haps
as Van Swoll in
Amsterdam,
gave
the
artist
entree
into a wider circle of collectors. The
pictures
that
Vermeer
exhibited
in
their homes
were
seen
by
other collectors
and
by
the artist-friends of
these
clients. An artist
with a
rep-
utation like Vermeer could visit
painters
and collectors
in
other cities
who
were friends
of his
local
protectors.
I
am
particularly intrigued by
the
possibility
that Vermeer
might
have
penetrated
the
Leyden
artistic circle thanks to Pieter
Claesz. van
Ruijven.
We have seen that Van
Ruij-
ven
was
closely
related to Pieter
Spierincx
Silvercroon,
the
patron
of
Gerard Dou. He also knew the Remonstrant no-
tary Nicolaes Paets in Leyden. It was perhaps through Spi-
erincx
or
Paets that Vermeer
gained
access to
Leyden
artists
of
his
generation
such as Frans
van
Mieris.
This
point
is
significant
because he was most
probably
influenced
early
in
his
career
by
artists
of
the
Leyden
school. For
his
Pro-
curess of
1656,
for
example,
he
may
have
borrowed
the
motif of
the artist's
self-portrait
from
Frans
van
Mieris'
Charlatan.56
The
Leyden
connection,
in
turn,
may
help
to
account for
Vermeer's
influences
in
the 1660's
on
Gabriel
Metsu and Van Mieris himself.
Finally,
we are entitled to
ask
whether Pieter
Spierincx might
have
suggested
to
Van
Ruijven