"Mary has chosen the good portion"
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 Vermeer
The Procuress
1656
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Scene in a brothel
The Dresden painting The Procuress, on the other hand, is free of any
such inadequacies. Vermeer changed genres in this painting, dated 1656. Wheelock
has assumed that the artist was inspired to use this subject matter by the
painting of the same name by the Utrecht Caravaggist Dirck van Baburen
(1590-1624); it was owned by his mother-in-law, Maria Thins, and appears as a
reference on the walls of several of his interiors.
Vermeer's picture belongs in the category of Bordeeltje, brothel pictures, which
was greatly valued as a sub-category in Dutch genre painting. The great interest
that was shown in such themes indicates that the public was finding a way of
compensating for an increasingly prudish moral code. These Bordeeltjes derive to
a large extent from paintings of the Prodigal Son (filius prodigus), who is in
the inn, frittering his money away on whores (Luke 15,11 ff.) This scene very
frequently appeared in prints in the sixteenth century, in versions such as
those by Lucas van Leyden and the Sorgheloos series by an anonymous artist
(Amsterdam, 1541). Originally, Christ's parable of the Prodigal Son was used to
demonstrate the contrast between Catholic principles and the Reformers' view of
the principle of divine mercy, shown when the lost son is received
with loving forgiveness by his father.
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Vermeer
The Procuress
(detail)
1656
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The motif of the brothel proved fascinating; it is not surprising,
therefore, that it quickly developed into an independent genre. From
a humanist point of view, it was possible to combine it with the
didactic warning that one should learn from such paintings, how
easily one could be fleeced in public houses. Warnings against
fraud, cheating, and theft also occur frequently in stories about
fools; an example is Sebastian Brant's Narrenschiff
(Ship of Fools), which appeared in 1494. These writings also warned
of the consequences of alcoholism, because it reduced one's
vigilance, and would ultimately lead the drinker to poverty.
The majority of genre paintings were not simply naive depictions of
reality, but always conveyed norms and values in a way that altered
what was happening. This painting is no exception, and the subject
here is the problem of controlling sensuousness, that one should
always be vigilant and sober. The motif of alcohol - or, to be
precise, of drinking wine - is a central element of Vermeer's
painting. The table in the picture is parallel to the frame, and
acts as a barrier between the observer and the participants in the
scene. It is covered by a carpet, and a carafe is placed to the
right. The young woman wearing the yellow jerkin is holding a wine
glass in her left hand, as is the reveller on the left side of the
picture; he is clothed in dark burgundy.
The actual theme here is that everything can be bought, including
love. The wine has brought colour to the young woman's cheeks, and
she has opened her hand to receive a coin in payment for her
services from a cavalier, who is wearing a hat decorated with
feathers and a vermilion jerkin. It has yet to be shown to what
extent this is a brothel scene in the narrower sense. A piece of
lace work can just be recognised where it has been put down on the
right on the table carpet, and this is a striking feature. It makes
it possible to infer that this is most
likely a domestic scene. In that case, what is happening here is
that an extramarital love affair is being initiated with the help of
the procuress, who is dressed in black; she is probably an old woman
living in the vicinity, who has come to witness the successful
conclusion to her efforts. Vermeer's picture, which gives us a
close-up view of the scene, is restrained and semantically rather
more open in structure when compared to other paintings on a similar
theme, such as Frans van Mieris' The Soldier and the
Prostitute (1658, The Hague, Mauritshuis). They tend to fill
out the plot with more detail, and occasionally include some quite
graphic allusions; dogs are copulating in Mieris' painting.
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Dirck van Baburen
The Procuress
1622
This painting by Baburen, which is set in a house of ill repute, belonged to
Vermeer's mother-in-law. It appears, as a painting within a painting, in two of
Vermeer's paintings, and was, in addition, probably the stimulus for his own
painting of the same name. |
Frans van Mieris
The Soldier and the Prostitute
1658
Copulating dogs play an
important role in determining the meaning of this scene.
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A drunken girl asleep at a table
As can be seen from the carafe on the left of the picture, the theme of drinking
wine is taken up again in this painting of a young woman, which is now in New
York. A young woman, leaning her head against her right hand, is sitting
opposite us at a table. The table is covered with a heavy oriental carpet, the
foremost part of which is arranged in a disorderly fashion to form a pyramid.
The girl is obviously asleep. Indeed, when the painting was sold in Amsterdam on
16th May 1696, it was given the title Een dronke slafende Meyd aen een Tafel
(A
drunken girl asleep at a table); when sold again in 1737 it was described as
Een
slapent vrouwtje, van de Delfse van der Meer (A sleeping young woman, by Van der
Meer of Delft). If the elegant clothes are anything to go by, she is not a maid,
but a huisvrouw, or in other words a wife who is in charge of the household.
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Vermeer
Girl Asleep at a Table
c. 1657
If the quality of the clothing is anything to go by. this is the
lady of the house. The way
she is supporting her head on her hand was a traditional motif which
signified acedia, or sloth;
here this is due to drunkenness, as the carafe of wine in the
foreground tells us. This woman has
been neglecting the household duties entrusted to her.
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Vermeer uses very few elements in his pictures, in contrast to Jan Steen, for
example, who fills his pictures with a profusion of objects and (usually noisy)
participants. The woman is isolated from anything that might be
happening elsewhere. X-ray examination has shown that there were originally
other elements in this painting which Vermeer later painted out: initially,
there was a dog in the doorway, and a man in the room beyond. By painting out
these narrative additions, he made his composition easier to interpret. The
woman's gestures are not so clear, however. They could be considered signs of
melancholy, like those of Mary in the earlier history painting. It is more
likely, however, that this is a reference to the traditional motif of acedia, or
sloth, which was frequently represented in this way. In mediaeval theology,
acedia was considered a vice, even a mortal sin. This was an age in which the
authorities were constructing a rigid, ascetic work ethos, complete with norms
which extended right into the home; for a wife to violate these norms must have
seemed to be a direct violation of God's law. In the literature of
seventeenth-century housefathers, it was expected that the "housemother", as the
commander of the household, would be god-fearing and virtuous, a shining example
of Christian virtues and a model for the riff-raff.
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Vermeer
Girl Asleep at a Table (detail)
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Acedia was frequently explained to be a consequence of alcoholism. In his London
painting The Consequences of Immoderation, Jan Steen depicted a woman who had
drunk herself to sleep on wine. Sleeping means that she is neglecting her
duties: the household is all topsy-turvy, the children are letting the cat
nibble a pie, the maid is giving the parrot a drink of wine, and a couple of
lovers are amusing themselves in the garden. So the sacred household order has
been annulled. The acedia motif appears at a lower social level in Nicolaes Maes'
painting The Lazy Maid. Here it is the maid who has made free with her
master's wine and has therefore not been able to carry out her tasks. That this
is the case is made clear by the untidy pile of crockery on the floor, and the
cat, who is snatching away a plucked hen.
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Nicolaes Maes
The Lazy Maid
1655
In this painting, it is the maid who has drunk
too much wine and is neglecting her duties.
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The intake of wine on the part of Vermeer's sleeping young woman evidently
has something to do with an extramarital love affair. The man in the
neighbouring room, who was later painted out, is not the only
indication of this. The picture that is hanging on the wall over the
woman is not a coincidence: it is a clavis interpretandi,
giving us a clue as to the erotic context of the scene. It is
difficult to make out, as it is in strong shadow. It has been
possible to ascertain that Vermeer is making a reference here to one
of Cesar van Everdingen's paintings, which depicts a putto, or small
Eros, wearing a mask, which was a sign of pretence. Everdingen's
picture goes back to an emblem of Otto van Veen's (Amorum
Emblemata, Antwerp 1608), whose motto was "Love demands
honesty".
Other items which indicate the erotic content of Vermeer's picture
include the almost still-life bowl of fruit - the "fruits of evil" -
and the egg, wrapped up in a cloth, which is a sign of something
that should be avoided: unbridled libido. Vermeer must have known
parts of classical literature which were frequently quoted by
seventeenth-century authors, such as Jacob Cats, who were keen to
educate the people. According to them, women were forbidden to drink
wine, as drunkenness led to whoring. One classical saying was
repeatedly cited: Mulier si temetum biberit domi ut adulteram
puniunta (If a woman drinks wine at home, she should be
punished as an adulteress).
Vermeer was starting to place great emphasis on geometric
compositions when he painted this picture. Something appears here
which was to become typical of most of his interiors: rooms which
are arranged parallel to the picture, something which can be seen by
the back walls, and also by the tables placed, like barriers,
horizontally to the frame. This enabled him to avoid the strong
distortions of perspective caused by using a camera obscura. The effect which this in turn caused was a strong
tendency to align the surfaces in the room so that doorframes,
mirrors and pictures, tables and other furnishings take on an almost
abstract tectonic and geometric structure.
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Vermeer
Girl Asleep at a Table (detail)
Important
leitmotif
White porcelain jugs appear repeatedly in Vermeer's art.
They
contained wine, which was supposed to act as a love potion and help
men seduce women.
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