A painting showing a bass viola da gamba and a skull, een [schilderij] waer in geschildert staet een bas [viola da gamba] met een dootshooft, In the inner kitchen. Room C.
[Image shown here is a detail from the Washington Vermeer. I have not been able to trace a proper image. Anybody knows of one?]
Montias claims the image is the one hanging in the background of ' Lady writing a letter' (Washington DC).
Note : This object was part of the Vermeer-inventory as listed by the clerk working for Delft notary public J. van Veen. He made this list on February 29, 1676, in the Thins/Vermeer home located on Oude Langendijk on the corner of Molenpoort. The painter Johannes Vermeer had died there at the end of December 1675. His widow Catherina and their eleven children still lived there with her mother Maria Thins.
The transcription of the 1676 inventory, now in the Delft archives, is based upon its first full publication by A.J.J.M. van Peer, "Drie collecties...", Oud Holland, 1957, pp. 98-103. My additions and explanations are added in square brackets [__]. Dutch terms have been checked against the world's largest language dictionary, the Dictionary of the Dutch Language (Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal, or WNT), which was begun by De Vries en Te Winkel in 1882.
Montias, Vermeer and his Milieu, p. 191.
This page forms part of a large encyclopedic site on Vermeer and Delft. Research by Drs. Kees Kaldenbach (email). A full presentation is on view at johannesvermeer.info.
Launched December, 2002; Last update March 1, 2017.
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