Original subtitles

One thing I've never understood about Vermeer's painting

is that the scale is so small

that even the tiniest bit of dust,

when it falls into the paint, it gathers paint, it attracts

the paint, and really ruins the surface.

Where, when you look at Vermeer's paintings, you never see

those little dust particles.

I was 18 and I wanted to be a painter

because I thought I was artistic, you know?

I did a course on Baroque painting.

I just knew Rembrandt, Rubens... Never heard of Vermeer.

And all of a sudden, Vermeer came on and I said,

"That's it. What is this mysterious object that I've just seen?"

It looked like it came from Mars and landed down

and wanted to say something to me.

All I could say, it just seemed right.

Everything just seemed to fall in place as if by magic.

I have no idea what really makes a Vermeer, Vermeer.

Because you could say the light, the perspective.

But there's so many things that, when you add them up -

the composition - you put them all together,

I think then you get a Vermeer.

So, Peter, it's your first time here, right,

since we moved to Frick Madison?

Yes, I haven't seen your new installation yet.

But then you get into the 17th century Dutch paintings,

which, the three Rembrandts together.

It's a gallery, no? No, it's amazing.

This is amazing.

You have these big grand pictures, so kind of imposing and life-sized.

And then the last room on this floor is the Vermeer room, and suddenly,

you're in this totally different dimension.

This is stunning.

Yeah, it's pretty great.

This is really well done.

It's really... I very much like the balance between the two

of them and then the Mistress And Maid in the centre.

I was a little worried because they're quite big walls

and sort of empty walls with small pictures,

but they really hold their place.

I don't think you can do that with every painter.

I think with Vermeer, you can. Yeah.

And if you have single walls in the exhibition with single works,

you can say that the idea came from Frick Madison.

HE LAUGHS Yeah!

I always find this painting, I mean, I find it a little

menacing as well.

I find the male figure, it's so kind of towering over her

and the idea that he's in shadow,

there's something more dark.

You know, what's the message?

What's going on?

And it's someone who spends the whole of his life, his career,

painting these scenes and these rooms over and over again.

You know, why?

This is a painting instead that has had some changes over time,

not necessarily all by Vermeer. Yeah.

And I'm really happy it's coming to Amsterdam for analysis

ahead of the exhibition.

You know, one big question that I hope we can answer

in Amsterdam is, was the birdcage added? Exactly.

And I think in this specific case, it's going to be very important

to try and answer some of those questions.

I found it very moving, actually, realising that it's the first time

in 200 years that this picture is in the Netherlands. Yeah.

And I'm also amazed, you know, an artist like Vermeer

that is so well studied and people talk about the whole time,

the fact that we're still making discoveries. The idea of pushing

the scholarship and the research to the next level

is what really excites me about this project.

So here we're looking at some of our XRF scans,

and our research suggests

that the birdcage is probably a later addition.

I think it's extraordinary.

But it's really funny.

I mean, how that birdcage was part of the interpretation

of this painting for quite a long, long time.

I mean, talking about what he wanted to tell with this.

Yeah. And now, well, it's not him.

SHE LAUGHS

We had one day to have the painting here up in the studio

for photography.

So I had the honour of carrying the girl.

First of all, I had the honour of unframing the girl.

So with my gloved hands taking the painting out of the frame,

that was such an amazing moment for me.

After a year of doing this research and preparing for this,

it was the first time I'd seen the back of the painting.

It was the first time I'd seen her out of the frame.

It was my first encounter that was very different

from what everyone else had experienced before me.

In 1994, they took tiny samples,

paint samples from the background of the painting.

And this is what they saw, that the background must have been green

and that was really revolutionary at the time, to know

that the girl isn't in a, you know, in a black space,

but that there must have been some green colour there.

Now we have such different and improved scientific technologies

than they did in 1994 that we could go a step further.

We suddenly noticed that there are some diagonal lines

here in the corner.

We expected that the background was flat,

was black with a greenish glaze on top.

But now we're thinking there's something going on,

brush strokes going on in a specific direction.

How could I live without playing cards?

HE CHUCKLES

Only 29.95.

OK, I can deal with that.

I'm going to do a video on Vermeer merchandise on my website.

Sort of tongue-in-cheek kind of thing.

I don't want to be too moralistic, but, you know, point out the fact

that there are dangers.

I'm worried that she is going to become too iconic.

And here she is.

Every time I see her, she always looks lighter

than what I even imagined, right?

Well, here's now your chance to get close, no-one around,

no-one around taking their selfies.

Wow!

Oh.

One of our new findings was

these lines in the top right corner.

Mm-hm. These may look like folds. Yeah.

That was our conclusion as well, because we know it was green.

And when there are these folds with highlights and shadows.

We think that she's standing in front or sitting in front

of a green curtain. Oh, right.

So that's the curtain that hangs down here.

It would have been very dark.

It wasn't like, you know... Bright green.

..bright green or something,

but it would have stayed in the background.

Absolutely.

That's amazing. Yeah.

Yeah.

What's...? This line is black?

Yeah, this line is super interesting because the contour

of Girl With A Pearl Earring is where Vermeer left

the brown underlayer exposed. Right.

And here's where that dark underlayer is showing through

between these brush strokes.

OK, great.

Then, of course, the tiny details like the dots on top.

That's so hard to do.

You know, as a painter, you want to get your highlights

because they make things work, right? Yeah.

Otherwise, you have a sort of, you know, highlight in the eye

and the highlights... Oh, yeah. It's so much fun, right?

You're definitely speaking to someone who's painted and knows...

You are the Vermeer expert.

I mean, even the experts in our field are all going

to Essential Vermeer for the first information about the paintings.

Yeah, yeah. THEY LAUGH

that revolves around Vermeer.

Always, what about the camera obscura?

Yeah, thank you.

Something which I found, which is new for me, is the presence

of the Jesuits next door to Vermeer.

And what I found is that the Jesuits are very, very busy

with the camera obscura and all the other optical instruments.

Yeah, yeah.

There's so many things going on in a painting like this.

I don't ever have the idea that I'm in front

of a canvas, right?

Paintings, even as a painter, you always see a painting

as paint on canvas.

Where, this, I don't see the canvas any more.

I see buildings.

I see people waiting.

I see clouds about to move.

Sure, all these, the sum of all these little things

give you one moment.

One moment.

I've never really understood

what makes this painting a Vermeer.

It looks like a work of a young painter.

It looks like a work and not experienced painter,

in my opinion.

His early paintings are just one big question mark.

Are these Vermeer's?

He's doing saints,

he's doing mythological scenes,

he's doing different styles.

I don't understand the first paintings.

He's all over the place.

So I don't know what he was doing.

Once we get to the Officer And Laughing Girl,

then I start to see Vermeer Vermeer.

Composition,

the colour, the light.

Those effects that no other painter in Holland would actually get.

He was making these, like mini worlds, mini universes

in the corner of a room, where everything is so important.

And then, afterwards, he has a brief rise in painting

where it becomes extremely ingenious.

These are really complex paintings,

and he really changes.

Compositions just become outrageously interesting.

Even a painting like The Lacemaker.

It's a complex, really complex painting.

And it's about this big.

Why would he have put so much time, so much effort, so much skill

into a painting that would not have got him a lot of money, right?

It's just too small.

Well, in the Counting Vermeer project that was done

a few years ago, based on X-rays of all of these Vermeer paintings,

they did find a few roll mates -

so paintings that came from the same roll of fabric.

There's the Young Woman Seated At A Virginal and The Lacemaker.

They were made from the same roll of fabric,

and they are roll mates to each other.

And one would assume, also all made by Vermeer.

But since Vermeer bought his canvas, probably with the ground already

applied on it, from art suppliers in Delft or somewhere around there,

it could also have been bought by somebody from his circle.

There's still a tiny bit of doubt.

You never know.

Anyone can buy that piece of canvas.

But I try to also stay away from attribution questions.

And it would be wonderful if we would be able

to dive into it a little bit more again. Yeah.

The first time I saw it, I was kind of scheming to get hold of it

because it absolutely was certain to be Vermeer, in my mind.

And then, so...

And then it was with Steve Wynn at that moment. Yeah.

Steve Wynn bought it at auction

and he then had it in his casino.

And I went down there for Tom Kaplan.

So I got the price.

I called Tom and Tom immediately said,

"Well, is it really a Vermeer?" I said, "Yes."

He said, "Buy it."

So, it took seconds.

It's amazing.

And I don't begrudge wealthy people to...

They never really own them anyway.

They only own them in their lifetime.

Rich people do a great thing - they die.

And when they die, something happens.

The taxes have to be paid or they are inherited by somebody

else who has a different attitude.

And it's like a big funnel effect.

They all end up in museums.

Sooner or later, they will.

The money is growing and the art is remaining stable.

There are no Vermeers left except the one that was stolen.

There's only one thing that can happen -

the price of the paintings have to go up.

People readily spend 100, 200 million for paintings.

I think it was wonderful... I'll give you an example.

At that time, I did not have the...

..aspirations to acquire a Vermeer.

No. It was still relatively early in the collecting.

Well, there was no chance. Well, there was no chance.

But also I hadn't... I mean, I'd just started with Rembrandt,

and the Vermeer looked like a bridge too far.

But the painting had been acquired by Steve Wynn.

And he said, "Well, if you want the Rembrandt self-portrait,

"you have to buy the Vermeer at the same time."

And I thought about that.

And, you know, there's a little expression...

PHONE RINGS

Sorry.

And I thought about that.

And there's a little expression saying,

"You can't threaten me with a good time."

And I said, "He wants to sell them both together."

I said, "Tell him, done." Yeah.

I thought she was beautiful. Yeah.

I thought she was completely enchanting,

the way that he had captured this moment

of arrested recognition and...

..courtship or love, affection,

that is perhaps uniquely characteristic,

in my experience, to Vermeer.

So one of the things that would be really interesting is to examine

that painting, like we try to examine as many Vermeer

paintings as possible.

But it would be wonderful,

well, if your painting, could be involved in that.

Well, like I said, you can't threaten me with a good time.

As soon as you want her and you're ready for her, she's yours.

Yeah.

Hi. Hello. Nice to meet you.

It's great to see you again.

Wow. Oh. We met so long ago.

A year, I think. Yeah, a year ago.

This painting,

we have it in the studio in Amsterdam. Mm.

What was your impression?

I mean, just... Just one-to-one impression?

It is... It's so difficult to say.

I think it is by him, but it's...

Sorry, it is a less successful painting. Mm-hm.

Yeah, so the technical research has found nothing which is made

in another way than Vermeer did it.

But I've spotted quite a number of anomalies.

Number one, if you take this picture, you can basically

cut it out and copy it right on top.

It's the same dimensions.

Number one, why would Vermeer had done a copy and paste?

The face is exactly the same proportions.

The arms are done in the same way.

There's nothing original. No.

This is very laboured.

It's... It's not a good piece of painting.

I notice that we have this curl here.

It seems funny to me.

Do we have The Lacemaker here?

You've got the same curl here.

The hairdo is supposedly similar to this, but if you look carefully,

it's as if the painter didn't understand what was happening here.

Vermeer quotes himself, but he always adds something original.

Like, there's no story here.

Here, everything he's done he's already done better.

I fully... Much better.

Why would he recall himself with so little enthusiasm?

I totally agree. Where did it all go?

Yeah, but I have the problem, how to...

Yeah, what's the name?

So do I have to write attributed to Vermeer or Studio of Vermeer?

Had he a studio? Yeah. We don't know.

Was it an assistant? And so on.

So this is really a little bit a problem, of course.

Yeah, but maybe we... You know, maybe at the end,

Vermeer was not capable to hold his quality.

Peter, wonderful to see you.

I love how things work out.

Hi, nice to meet you. Great to meet you.

Thank you. How are you?

Nice to meet you. Anna Krekeler. I'm one of the...

Nice to meet you. It's a pleasure.

Thank you.

Did you miss her? I did.

And, you know, this is the first time that I've seen her undressed

and, and without...

..without the frame, I mean.

It's the enormity of holding a Vermeer.

And the only one in private hands. Literally, yeah?

LAUGHTER

Very well put. That's a great turn of phrase.

The only one in private hands. Yes!

When I first saw this painting... I saw it at Sotheby's the evening

it was auctioned.

And I don't know whether you know this, but I cast...

I put up... I was the first bid.

I took the paddle from Johnny Van Haeften

and I said, "Give me that."

And then he saw I was going to continue and he took it from me

and he said, "Give me that!"

He was afraid that I'd just continue.

Steve Wynn bought it and then of course, we bought it from him.

LAUGHTER

So, Anna and Annalise made some additional research.

On the right side, we see a short-wave infrared,

and we're showing this because it kind of takes you

to the initial phase of the painting. Yes.

In the initial phase,

the skirt continued up to the waistline and then the shawl

was introduced.

So it becomes clear that the skirt was already sort of covered

by the shawl when the final paint layers were added.

That is very exciting.

I mean, as you can imagine.

There was always that question.

Did the shawl come afterwards?

Was it him?

And what, essentially, this shows is it was all contemporaneous.

What you've determined here

is really the most important new information,

I mean, in terms of the understanding of this painting,

since the determination that the canvas

is the same as The Lacemaker. Yeah. I mean, from the same bolt of cloth.

Yeah. So it's inherent to the concept.

Yes. Yes.

Yes.

It's him.

It's him, yeah.

Huh!

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You're very welcome.

We will incorporate all of this information.

That is really nice that you were able to do this...

Here we are.

Paintings you know well.

Great to see them again.

Yeah, old friends.

This painting was the gift of Mr and Mrs Charles Reitman.

But it came with these restrictions that none of the paintings

they gave to us can ever travel.

They always have to be on view here at the Met.

I think it's stunning.

Absolutely.

And then the Woman With The Water Pitcher,

which was the first Vermeer to actually come to America,

is a very fragile painting,

so very unlikely to ever be loaned again. Yeah.

I feel a kind of sadness in it as well, since it's...

I mean, we know that we are never...

..being able to bring paintings like these back home.

ALARM SOUNDS

ALARM SOUNDS

Wow!

ALARM SOUNDS

We are fully focusing on the exhibition, which is opening

already, early '23.

So it's getting a bit exciting.

So how many paintings will there be in the show?

Well, it depends. I think it's...

As a friend and colleague, I just, you know,

I want to support this exhibition

because I think we all gain from that.

But at the same time, you know, these are what I always call

pilgrimage paintings, you know, the ones that people make

a pilgrimage to the National Gallery just to see.

I don't think that all of the paintings have ever

been out of the building at the same time.

Would there be a possibility of a reciprocal loan

of a Vermeer at some point? Yeah. OK.

We would be absolutely happy to collaborate with you

on a future Vermeer project here.

Great!

So you've examined all four right now, and what I think is one

of the most striking things is, well, the way you're looking

at this painting again. Yeah.

And, you know, as you know, the attribution of this painting

has been questioned.

That's one of the things that we really wanted to dig into

and investigate.

And you see striking differences, then,

to the others?

Um, might be.

The Girl With The Flute.

It's an amazing little piece of painting.

There's this hat that you could feel

you could put your finger on her head and flip it off.

You just want to take the hat off of the woman's head.

It just really sticks out.

It looks pretty good to me,

but it doesn't really look like he finished it.

If this was finished, this would have been, you know,

one of Vermeer's finest works.

Now the question is, why did Vermeer use green earth on the flesh tones?

And so far, nobody has really been able to come up with an explanation.

When you move into the neck, you can see it's just fundamentally green.

I think it will be very difficult to gauge exactly.

No-one knows how this was done.

Even the slightest amount of green earth here will...

Just dull down this cheek a little bit better.

Now...

He was the only painter using this technique.

I count at least eight paintings that are clearly done

with green earth in the flesh tones.

Well, good morning to all of you.

Um, it's quite an impressive moment.

Wonderful to have so much colleagues from abroad,

especially the Washington team in full strength.

What now to do with Girl With A Flute?

The girl is looking straight at us.

I mean, has anyone ever seen a Vermeer girl look straight at us?

This raking light image shows you how lumpy the paint handling is,

which is a little unnerving.

Generally, you get a sense of someone who's really struggling,

who hasn't quite got command of their materials.

The green earth shadows in Vermeer's faces seem to be unique to Vermeer.

But on the right, you can see how they've built up this big,

thick mass of green that almost drips in places.

So this artist knew that they should be using green earth

in their skin shadows, but didn't quite have the knack.

So, close, but no cigar.

So, Alex, you wanted...?

So, with this new body of evidence that we've assembled,

we can say that Vermeer was not involved in the creation

of Girl With The Flute.

You know, we know that whoever painted this had a very close

proximity to Vermeer, was likely observing him as he worked,

just as a studio assistant or a student might.

And this is really exciting because there is, of course,

no documentation about this, but I think it's an opportunity

to rethink the way in which Vermeer was working.

I mean, the idea that he was possibly a mentor, training

a next generation of artists.

That's a little update of what we've been doing for two years.

I was just going to say, that's how we spent our vacation!

APPLAUSE

I was so impressed with this painting.

And now I have to hear that you doubt the... We do, yeah.

And this is something new and I have to...slick it.

Swallow it. Yeah, swallow it, yeah.

It's a big frog now.

You can do it. You can do it.

To hear that, you know, it might not be by Vermeer after all,

was kind of kind of shocking. Was it? OK.

Because I've had my doubts for a long time myself.

So what do you think?

Do you still want the painting in your show?

Girl With The Flute?

I really believe it's opening a door. Yeah.

So if this is not him, who is it?

But who is it? Had Vermeer an assistant?

Is it his daughter, Maria Vermeer? I mean...

Could it be him on a windy day? You don't believe?

No, no.

Couldn't it be that it is the first try out of this things?

Could it be that... No.

I mean, we just we don't see a scenario

in which this is by Vermeer.

TV: There is big news in the art world.

A painting thought to be by Johannes Vermeer

isn't a Vermeer after all.

That's surprising to me.

You see here, the greenish shadows in the flesh.

There's not the subtlety of transition

that we find in Vermeer.

So, what, the neck is green?

If you look at the neck of the woman, of the guitar player,

it's pretty green.

It looks like a lizard.

But there's no doubt that that's a Vermeer.

I can tell you right now that we are, at this moment,

with 27 paintings for the exhibition.

27? 27.

That is five more than in The Hague in '95, '96.

But we will have the three of the Frick collection.

All three of the Frick collection?

The Officer And The Laughing Girl will be there.

I would go just to see that painting!

You're a painter, an artist.

And you can look like a painter.

Yes. Yes, I do.

Now, you have always to make a difference between paintings.

You will laugh because you think that they are really, really fine.

And then the technicians are coming to you and saying

the other way.

So, I am a scientist. So, in my heart there are two things bumping.

So, a little bit the art lover,

and the other is, of course, the scientist.

There are so many enigmas, there are so many things that I think

both of us still don't understand.

Both of us still are very careful.

You know? We don't want to tread on facts.

We don't want to make up our own facts.

I believe that we're both willing to live with doubts. Mm.

Vermeer has meant something different

to every single generation.

I think I've counted six or seven Vermeers in the last century.

A long time ago, it was about Vermeer the leftist.

You could say he's painting the people, the common life.

And then, afterwards, Vermeer became an abstract painter, right?

A formless painter - just shapes and colours.

After that, people started thinking about Vermeer as a storyteller,

as an iconographer.

And the most recent development is sort of a feminist kind of appeal.

Vermeer, who painted women, the painter of women,

what their psych was.

And he was so near to women.

So every generation sort of turns over what was there before.

And so it's hard to keep up with it.

The idea that these artists were isolated geniuses

existing in their own world, creating in this void,

it's just not in a way relevant any more.

It's not a relevant question. We really want to know...

You know, tell me about this ambience

that you were in, and tell me about your wife.

Tell me about your mother-in-law.

Tell me about your daughters.

Because women are such a central theme to him.

But it must have been a very influential environment, too,

to have all of these women around you.

And we don't often think of their role, though I think

this next generation really is.

Good morning. Good to see you.

Perfect. Um...

Good. Great. Hey.

Microphone. OK.

All right.

Yeah, good.

We shouldn't throw it away...

There you go.

Thanks, John. You're welcome.

That was fun. That was fun.

Well, you could have continued

for another two hours!

So, whatever it is, it's quite a convincing composition, I think.

She's leaning at one side, so her weight is over.

That's why she's a little bit diagonal...

I would love to show you something.

Oh!

Is this it? It is it.

This is the one that Vermeer saw? Yeah.

Yeah, that he saw with his own eyes.

He saw with his own eyes and thought it was worthwhile

to put in his painting.

And very interesting that he cut it in this painting here,

I would say.

So we have here, the tulband on top and so on...

So, what is this light part? This is the lightest.

There's sort of a rectangle here. That corresponds to that.

To this one. It's really exactly that, right?

Yeah. Very funny.

I've always been amazed that you were able to connect

that little sliver.

I always thought, we'll never know what was this supposed to be?

And then you discovered this.

I know.

I guess I didn't look at it as carefully as you did.

So we have an object that Vermeer actually touched.

Yeah. Amazing. Yeah.

Do you mind if I touch it in the corner?

Can I just touch it slightly?

That... Oh!

Have we seen all the Vermeers?

Yes, I think I've seen them all.

My very last Vermeer was the one in Berlin.

What was it, a year ago?

Yeah. A little bit more than a year ago.

The Glass Of Wine or The Girl With A Glass Of Wine.

And it was good to have put this thing off, you know.

You turn 71 and you see your last Vermeer.

And I was just really moved.

I just walked into the room...

I'm sorry.

And it was just like the first Vermeer I ever seen.

Looks pretty amazing.

I'm looking forward to having people see them, compare them, and, yeah.