An old lantern, 'Een out lantaritge' in the back kitchen, room J.
Lantern with the VOC embleem of the Dutch United India company. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, inventory NG 1985-1 F 3273-8.
A lantern is a small enclosed container with a translucent side. It provided safe illumination as it prevented fires. There were lanterns with a pit which used whale oil or another oil. The use of candles made out of bees wax was expensive. Generally lighting would heve been scarce in the Vermeer home.
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..." in Oud Holland 1957, pp. 98-103. My additions and explanations are added within 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.
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 2, 2017.
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