The Concert
Johannes Vermeer
Johannes Vermeer was a Dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life.
Max Resolution:453×500 PX
Title:The Concert
Artists:Johannes Vermeer
Date:c.1664
Style:Baroque
Genre:genre painting
Medium:oil,canvas
Location:Stolen, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Fenway Court), Boston, MA, US
Dimensions:72.5×64.7 cm
Copyright:Public domain
The Concert (c. 1664) is a painting by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. The 72.5-by-64.7-centimetre (28.5 by 25.5 in) picture depicts a man and two women playing music. It belongs to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, but was stolen in 1990 and remains missing. It is thought to be the most valuable unrecovered stolen painting ever, with a value estimated at over $200,000,000.
The picture shows three musicians: a young woman sitting at a harpsichord, a man playing the lute, and a woman who is singing. The harpsichord's upturned lid is decorated with an Arcadian landscape; its bright coloring stands in contrast to the two paintings hanging on the wall to the right and left. A viola da gamba can be seen lying on the floor.
Of the two paintings in the background, the one on the right is The Procuress by Dirck Van Baburen, a work which also appears in Vermeer's Lady Seated at a Virginal, probably painted around six years after The Concert. The painting on the left is a wild pastoral landscape. The musical theme in Dutch painting in Vermeer's time often connoted love and seduction, a motif reinforced by the presence of Baburen's sexually exuberant picture.
The location of the painting was unknown for a long time. Sold in Amsterdam in 1696, it did not reappear until 1780. It was acquired by Isabella Stewart Gardner in an 1892 auction in Paris for $5,000 and subsequently displayed in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, beginning in 1903. On the night of March 18, 1990, thieves disguised as policemen stole 13 works out of the museum, including The Concert. To this day the painting has not resurfaced.
The picture shows three musicians: a young woman sitting at a harpsichord, a man playing the lute, and a woman who is singing. The harpsichord's upturned lid is decorated with an Arcadian landscape; its bright coloring stands in contrast to the two paintings hanging on the wall to the right and left. A viola da gamba can be seen lying on the floor.
Of the two paintings in the background, the one on the right is The Procuress by Dirck Van Baburen, a work which also appears in Vermeer's Lady Seated at a Virginal, probably painted around six years after The Concert. The painting on the left is a wild pastoral landscape. The musical theme in Dutch painting in Vermeer's time often connoted love and seduction, a motif reinforced by the presence of Baburen's sexually exuberant picture.
The location of the painting was unknown for a long time. Sold in Amsterdam in 1696, it did not reappear until 1780. It was acquired by Isabella Stewart Gardner in an 1892 auction in Paris for $5,000 and subsequently displayed in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, beginning in 1903. On the night of March 18, 1990, thieves disguised as policemen stole 13 works out of the museum, including The Concert. To this day the painting has not resurfaced.