RKD STUDIES

1.1 Biografie

... lessen tekenen en schilderen. 2 Op vrije middagen trokken zij er samen op uit om buiten te tekenen en te aquarelleren. 3 Na het eindexamen begon hij op aandringen van zijn vader aan een militaire opleiding bij de infanterie in Haarlem. In brieven aan zijn moeder uitte hij zijn onvrede over deze keuze en vroeg hij om toestemming voor het volgen van een kunstopleiding.4 Uiteindelijk zwichtte zijn vader, en in 1895 startte hij aan de Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten te Antwerpen, tegelijk met onder anderen Simon Maris en Gerrit Gratama [1].5...

... reeks Amstelgezichten [7] die tegenwoordig tot zijn bekendste werk wordt gerekend. Vanwege de Eerste Wereldoorlog was Wolter niet in staat om naar het buitenland af te reizen. Hoewel hij enkele malen teruggreep naar de Zuid-Engelse onderwerpen, schilderde hij in deze periode als gevolg van de oorlog voornamelijk Nederlandse havens, rivieren, steden en dorpsgezichten. Deze schilderijen toonde Wolter gedurende tien jaar op tentoonstellingen van de Hollandsche Kunstenaarskring. In 1924 toonde Wolter voor het laatst werk op de tentoonstelling van deze vereniging. In 1925 was hij nog wel lid, maar exposeerde hij niet meer.Eind 1924 solliciteerde Wolter naar de functie van professor aan de Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunsten te Amsterdam. Deze functie kwam vrij na het aftreden van de 69-jarige Nicolaas van der Waay. Er bestond grote belangstelling voor de vacature, en naast Wolter hadden onder anderen Willem van Konijnenburg, Georg Rueter, Leo Gestel en Jan Sluijters interesse getoond. Vier van de vijf hoogleraren stemden uiteindelijk voor Wolter. Het kunstonderwijs aan de academie was ondanks interne en externe kritiek nog altijd overwegend traditioneel. Er was weinig oog voor moderne stromingen; de exacte weergave van de natuur stond centraal in de opleiding. Met Wolter meende men het beste van twee werelden samen te brengen. In een uitgebreid artikel over Wolter in Elsevier’s Geïllustreerd Maandblad, door R.W.P. de Vries jr. naar aanleiding van Wolters benoeming, staat dat met hem iemand gevonden is 'die zoowel de traditie we...

2.5 X-rays and Vermeer’s painting technique

... so provide insight about a painting’s original size, as well as information about the original strainer and the way the painting was mounted onto the strainer, in addition to features relating to past interventions and damages, such as additions, inserts, repairs, folds, tears, holes and even if the painting has been transferred from another support in the past. For panel paintings usually the type of wood can be discerned, along with the direction of the wood grain, as well as the presence of joins, losses, woodworm infestation, cracks, auxilliary supports and old repairs. The visualization of the wood grain or canvas weave is related to the typ...

... revealing an imprint of the presumably original seventeenth-century strainer in a paint layer on the reverse of the original canvas. Comparison of the partial imprint of the corner bar of the strainer in the upper right, with the imprint of the complete corner bar in the upper left, indicated a reduction of some 12 cm had occurred on the right side of the painting. Importantly this meant that the painting was originally the same size as View of Delft (L12).3Information about the original strainers, and in some cases even the original method of mounting the canvas to the strainer, is often also visible in X-radiographs. Lines of cracks parallel to the edges of a painting, caused by the original strainer bars, can frequently be discerned in X-radiographs [2a, 2b]. This type of crack pattern, often referred to as ‘strainer bar cracks’, gives information on the type and size of seventeenth century strainers, which are rarely preserved. An exception is Vermeer’s The Guitar Player (L35) that has retained its original four-member strainer with bars that vary from 2.1 to 2.7 cm in width [2c].4 The ‘strainer bar cracks’ present in The Milkmaid (L07), Woman in Reading a Letter (L17), Woman with a Pearl Necklace (L18) and Woman Holding a Balance (L19) indicate similar strainers were used in these relatively small pictures, which are all comparable in size with The Guitar Player (L35). In Vermeer’s larger paintings such as the just mentioned Diana and Her Nymphs (L01), View of Delft (L12) and The Art of Painting (L26), the ‘strainer bar cracks’ in the corners of the X-rays indicate these (larger) paintings ori...

... to varying degrees, and depending on admixtures with other pigments appear medium to dark in an X-radiograph. Due to their differences in radio-absorbency certain red and yellow pigments can be distinguished from each other: red and yellow earths will appear dark in an X-ray, while vermilion and lead-tin yellow will appear light. It is therefore important to keep in mind that only a limited range of pigments register in an X-ray....

... Letter (L17). In this painting, the lively brushwork originates from the lead-white containing pale yellow underpaint, which partially shows through the thin, smooth, light blue upper paint layer of the wall [7a, 7b]. The combination of a textured underpaint, with a smooth top paint layer is considered a characteristic feature of Vermeer’s painting technique.8 The underpaint in the foreground of View of Delft (L12) also displays expressive brushwork. The broad diagonal brushstrokes of the lead-white containing underpaint are clearly visible in the X-ray image and shimmer through the smooth yellowish rose-colored surface paint [7c, 7d]....

... anges are not always visible with the naked eye, they can be revealed by careful study of X-radiographs. When such changes become visible to the naked eye they are often referred to as ‘pentimenti’....

... tially left a reserve for the map in the lead-white containing paint of the wall is evident from the dark rectangle behind the woman in the X-ray. The X-radiograph also reveals that Vermeer altered the initially flared shape of the woman’s jacket (the original reserve of the jacket in the background paint is visible in the X-ray as a slightly darker shape). This revision serves to unify and reinforce the areas of the white wal...

... ans (1527-circa 1607) and Paul Vredeman de Vries (1567-1617), Thomas de Keyser (1596-1667), Gerard Houckgeest (circa 1600-1661), Jan van der Vucht (1603-1637), Anthonie de Lorme (1610-1637), Ludolf de Jongh (1616-1679), Emanuel de Witte (1617-1692), Cornelis de Man (1621-1706), Pieter Janssens Elinga (1623-1682), Hendrick van der Burch (circa 1625-after 1664), and Pieter de Hooch (1629-1684).16 Remarkable evidence of this method is found in a panel by Dirck van Delen (1605-1671), Iconoclasm in a Church (1630) in the Rijksmuseum where part of the metal pin onto which the piece of string would have been attached is still present in the painting [11].To date pinholes have been discovered at the vanishing point in seventeen paintings by Vermeer.17 In most cases the pinholes are difficult to discern on the paint surface with the unaided eye. In Vermeer’s The Art of Painting (L26) the pinhole is apparent in the paint surface just underneath the tassel of the map, near Clio’s hand. Pinholes can be more easily detected in X-radiographs where they mostly appear as dark spots, where the lead-white containing ground was lost when the pin was inserted into the painting. In Woman at the Virginal with a Gentleman (L15), the central vanishing point is positioned in the left arm of the woman at the virginal and appears as a dark spot in the X-radiograph [12]. They can also ...

2.6 Condition, past conservation treatments, interventions and ageing

... limate conditionsWhen Girl with a Pearl Earring (L22) was bequeathed to the Mauritshuis in 1903, the painting was reported as being in a ‘deplorable state of neglect’. Photographs taken at the time, as well as written documents showed the painting suffered from extensive paint loss. The painting has since been restored several times, and although the paint losses are no longer visible they can still be seen in the X-radiograph [3]. When the painting was investigated prior to its treatment in 1994-1995 inexplicable white dots were observed in the X-ray in areas that did not contain lead white. During the subsequent cleaning of the painting it was discovered that the white dots in the X-ray were small upturned flakes of original paint. It would seem that when the painting was lined in 1882, the adhesion of the paint was very poor and many loose paint fragments were displaced and pressed into the paint surface. During the 1994-1995 treatment a total of 38 paint fragments were removed.1...

... a hole in the center of the sky. The damage was restored in the same year by W.A. Hopman (1828-1910). Altho...

... turn to the Rijksmuseum, an international committee decided The Love Letter (L30) should be restored as invisibly as possible, and that all areas of loss and damage should be carefully  retouche...

... dily visible on the paint surface [6a, 6b]. Analysis of paint cross sections showed the paint layers were extensively deformed in the damaged areas, indicating exposure to raised temperatures. It also became obvious that the damage to the paint was not confined to the blisters and holes on the surface, but that the paint has an extremely porous structure (bubbles) throughout the paint layers, from the ground up through to the paint surface. It appeared that Vermeer’s Woman in Blue Reading a Letter (L17) had been overheated, most likely during a past lining procedure, causing the paint to blister. Some of these small blisters erupted at the surface, leaving small circular losses in the paint surface.4...

... red rooftops at the left edge in View of Delft (L12) [7a, 7b] now appear pinker in tone and show a re...

6.3 Cusping

... often more information is needed to confirm this assessment, such as that provided by the tacking edges, when available, as in the preceding analysis of The Little Street (L11).A similar history of priming at a large size (thereby inducing primary cusping), cutting out a smaller rectangle, and re-mounting the smaller rectangle for painting (potentially producing secondary cusping) could be associated with a canvas having strong cusping on only one side and secondary cuspingon all others. This could occur with a canvas extracted not from a corner but from the edge of the larger primed canvas. The deep, widely spaced cusping in the horizontal threads across the top edge of A Lady Writing (L20) and the shallower, more closely spaced cusping along the other three edges, makes A Lady Writing (L20) a prime candidate for having been prepared on an oversized strainer....

... For example, when the film is inserted between the stretcher bars and the canvas, the edges of the painting are not always captured in the X-radiograph. The method of taking X-radiographs with several overlapping X-ray films exposed separately and covering...

... d. The weave angle maps for The Geographer (L27) show distinct and evenly distributed cusping on all sides. All tacking edges of this painting have been preserved and are unprimed showing that the canvas was prepared in its present size, that is an example of category (i). Furthermore, the unprimed tacking edges of The Geographer (L27) indicate that The Geographer (L27) was not primed while still connected to its rollmate ...

6.1 Weave matches

... tolerance for a match as less than 1 thread/cm difference in the warp threads and less than a bit more than 1 thread/cm for weft threads has been proposed for seventeenth-century canvases.4 Here, as discussed in the previous chapter,5 spectral methods are used to estimate the frequency of the principal sinusoidal component of the Fourier decomposition in regions of interest, and the principal component’s frequency serves as a proxy for the actual thread count.6If we examine the average ‘thread counts’ for each painting in table [1] we can produce pairings that are reasonable to be considered count matches.7 The measure used at this point is that the average thread counts differ by no more than 1 thread/cm in one direction and by no more than 2 threads/cm in the other direction....

... without a count match. Computational methods exist for assessing the degree of weave pattern match between the weave maps of two paintings, which can narrow down the search for weave matches.8 For the first three matches discovered,9 a computational approach was used, along with observations that the canvases of paintings of interest appeared quite similar, for example as for The Lacemaker (L29) and Young Woman Seated at a Virginal (L36).10 Here, we will illustrate a process of directing our search for weave matches using the information in table 1 and the weave maps produced by the computational methods described in the previous chapter.11Begin by comparing each of the pai...

... r (Woman with a Lute (L14)-Woman with a Pearl Necklace (L18)) discovered among Vermeer’s canvases. The four paintings are shown in their original orientation as canvas rollmates in figure [8].The arrangement in figure 7 suffers from some ambiguity. The relative position of each thread-sharing pair could conceivably be reversed. For example, the horizontal thread density map of Woman with a Lute (L14) could be positioned above the vertical thread density map of Woman Writing a Letter, with Her Maid (L31) and maintain a viable weave match, as shown in figure 5 in §5.4.3.16 This would rearrange the weave maps in the right half of figure 7 so the pair Woman Writing a Letter, with Her Maid (L31) and Woman Holding a Balance (L19) in the quartet would be horizontally aligned. But, the corresponding density maps do not appear to match. Plus, the difference of 1.74 in the average thread counts in what would be the shared direction, that is horizontal for Woman Writing a Letter, with Her Maid (L31) and vertical for Woman Holding a Balance (L19), from table 1 is large for a count match. Therefore, the combination of the four paintings in figure 7 is at least as long as the height of Woman Writing a Letter, with Her Maid (L31) plus the sum of the widths of Woman with a Pearl Necklace (L18) and Woman Holding a Balance (L19), which is over 160 cm. The group width, which is the sum of the heights of Woman with a Lute (L14) and Woman with a Pearl Necklace (L18), is around 100 cm, which is approximately 1.5 el, a standard strip width.17One observation regarding the six weave-matched pairs, three of which appear in figure 7, is how close the thread count match is in both directions, with the thread-sharing direction being the closer fit, as apparent from table 2 where the matching pairs are listed in their order of discovery. This...

... tter Reader (L05), View of Delft (L12), Woman at the Virginal with a Gentleman (L15), A Lady Writing (L20), and The Lacemaker (L29); and a blue box centered on The Guitar Player (L35) encloses Mistress and Maid (L21), Young Woman Standing at a Virginal (L33), and Young Woman Seated at a Virginal (L34)....

... es, which are typically pairs, discovered so far....

... t matches. For example, consider figure [15].For the match candidate in each row below the top one, the first two figures should be compared to the horizontal weave map in the top row. This comparison will require movement of the candidate weave map to test alignment. The second two figures in the match candidate row are to be compared to the vertical weave map in the top row. Only one (or none) of these 4 match tests can exhibit aligned stripes. In figure 15 (as shown in figure 7), the first entry in the third row can be aligned to the right of the first image of the top row and the third entry in the second row can be aligned below the second entry in the to...

4.4 Manual thread count

... .To use this interface to count threads, move the green line around by dragging its two endpoints. Place these in convenient locations (both centered on either white or black regions). Then, you can command-click (on a Mac, or Control-click on a PC) to add new red markers. Place the markers at each place the thread crosses the green line. Observe the graph at the bottom: this shows the contour of brightness along the green line: high points are white and low points are black. The peaks or valleys can often be used to...

1. The Scientific Examination of Works of Art: Its Potentials and Its Limitations

... rical overview of the use of X-radiography in the study of paintings, which began in earnest around 1925 with the work of Alan Burroughs at the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, Noble and Verslype narrow their focus to its use in Vermeer scholarship. They demonstrate how this examination technique reveals compositional changes and the buildup of paint layers as well as losses and other damages that have occurred over time. As Noble and Verslype note, X-radiographs also provide information about the canvas because they register the various densities of the lead-bearing ground layers covering that support.The history of how these canvas supports have been analyzed over the last sixty years is the subject of the following chapter. Michiel Franken examines the origins and character of canvas supports, while noting that st...

... life-altering impact of Vermeer’s paintings in the following terms: ‘I, too, was first attracted to Vermeer's work because of his perfect composition and the harmony of his colors. But as I grew older and matured, I began to sense that his work could help me understand my life experience.’8...

... Vermeer’s techniques, Hale assessed the way Vermeer built up his paintings by laying in his compositions with flat layers of light and shade. He wondered if Vermeer might have painted on a canvas prepared with blue or green because of the tonalities of some of his paintings. He also speculated that Vermeer used yellow lake that had faded away or been removed by overly harsh cleaning.10...

... thing more by simple light and shade than are the eye, the nose, and the mouth of this head… Simply the mouth is made light where it came light, dark where it was dark. And there is no handling visible – one cannot in any way see how the colour was floated on. The form is simply there, perfectly rendered – the means of its making quite concealed'.11Hale’s fascination with Vermeer’s manner of painting was not unique, particularly in the early 1920s and 1930s, when the artist’s fame was rapidly rising and his paintings were becoming ever more valuable. A number of art historians from those deca...

... tingly, when The Lacemaker and The Smiling Girl first appeared on the market, no Vermeer scholars requested that technical examinations be made of them, even Valentiner, who, when writing about them, observed: ‘To hear almost every year of a newly discovered Vermeer may cause suspicion’.13 One can only assume that Valentiner, like Hofstede de Groot, trusted his eye over chemical analysis....

... r of the varnish covering its surface. Discovering that a painting has layers of discolored varnish, or has been selectively cleaned in the past, often explains why certain works lack vibrancy, or why their palettes seem muted. Examining a painting with infra-red can provide information about old restorations or repainting, which could explain compositional discrepancies that would otherwise be confusing and lead to faulty conclusions....

... of paint samples or undertaken with x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, provide much information about the types of paints artists used, and changes in color that may have occurred over time. The overarching goal of such examinations is to learn more about Vermeer’s artistic process, not only the ways he used his canvas and panel supports, but also ...

... nvas supports is important for assessing the dates, and possible pendant relationships of these works, it is but one of a number of factors that need to be considered when making such determinations, including style, paint handling, and compositional relationships. Issues surrounding the proposed pendant relationships of The...

6.4 Former Vermeers

... ermeers along with the 34 paintings by Vermeer on canvas in figure [1] helps to visualize the tight count matches noted in table 1.As table 1 and figure 1 show, Lady with a Guitar (38, Philadelphia Museum of Art) has tight matches with three of Vermeer's canvases: Mistress and Maid (L21), Young Woman Seated at a Virginal (L34) and The Guitar Player (L35). Were Lady with a Guitar (38) to have a weave match with any of these, it would provide important evidence in the attribution of the painting. However, visual analysis of the weave maps reveals no plausible matches, and so the similarity of the average thread counts must be considered a coincidence....

2.4 Making and interpreting X-radiographs

... IQI) and carefully recorded metadata is recommended as differences in radio absorption can make comparison of X-rays difficult. Given the higher resolution of film versus digital X-radiography means that film is often the preferred method. In the Rijksmuseum both methods are in use. In the case of film, usually the individual X-ray films are scanned at high resolution in order to make a digital overall assembly of the entire painting. This allows for t...

... e primary X-rays pass through all the constituent materials and layers before being captured by a sensitive film or plate. Both the frequency and the amplitude of the X-ray sourc...

... (L31) [5a, 5b]. A disadvantage of this method is that the outermost edges of the painting will not be captured in the X-ray film. Another method to enhance the readability of X-rays is to remove the stretcher bars d...

5.4 The countingVermeer software

... thread densities and angles for both the vertical and horizontal directions for each region throughout the X-ray of the canvas. The function displayWeaveMaps exhibits the estimated densities and angles as colored images, and can also provide summary information such as averages, standard deviations, and histograms. The third function, align, displays weave maps from two different paintings, both at the same resoluti...

... lates and displays a common set of colors. Looking at the color bar in figure 3, the blue tinge of the horizontal thread map of A Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid (L31) is centered somewhere near 11 threads/cm, while red coloring of the horizontal thread map of Woman with a Lute (L14) shows it is nearer 20 threads/cm. No match is possible!However, selecting the vertical weave map of A Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid (L31), by cha...