“The greater number of these pictures seem to have been recovered.
“The _Milkwoman_ [No. 2] is, in all probability, the one hanging for so
long in the Six collection.
“The _Young woman playing the guitar_ [No. 4] is actually the picture
belonging to Mr. Johnson, in Philadelphia. It has been in the Cremer
collection at Brussels and in the H. Bischoffsheim collection in London.
“The _Young woman at a harpsichord with a gentleman listening_ [No. 6]
is no doubt the much-admired picture at Windsor Castle, where it is
one of the treasures and is called _The Music Lesson_. It was sold at
Amsterdam at the Roos sale, in 1820, for 340 florins.
“The _Young woman taking a letter from a servant_ [No. 7] is at the
Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, under the title _The Letter_. It was bought
by the State, through the intervention of the Rembrandt Society and of
M. Van Lennep, from M. Messcher Van Vollenhoven for 45,000 florins.
“The _Drunken servant sleeping at a table_ [No. 8] is, in all
probability, the picture which until just lately belonged to the
Kahn collection in Paris, and of the authenticity of which there is
no doubt. [This was bought by Mr. Altman in 1910.] Bürger possessed
another picture, a servant sleeping in a kitchen, and he believed
that this was the work sold in 1696. In his picture the figure is not
leaning on the table. It is now in the Widener collection and in it the
characteristic qualities of Vermeer are not to be found.
“_A man and a young woman making music_ [No. 10] is probably the
_Singing Lesson_ of the Frick collection at Pittsburg.
“_A soldier with a young girl who is laughing_ [No. 11] is Mrs.
Joseph’s picture in London.
“_The young lace-maker_ [No. 12] is the little _chef-d’œuvre_ in the
Louvre sold for 84 francs at the Muilman sale in 1813; 501 in 1817 at
the Lapeyrière sale; 265 fls. at the Nagel sale in 1851, and in 1870
bought by M. Blockhuyzen, of Rotterdam, for 1270 frs.
“The _View of Delft_ [No. 13], if it has no replica, is the picture in
the Museum at the Hague, for which 2900 fls. was paid at the Stinstra
sale in 1822.
“The _House at Delft_ [No. 14] is the _Ruelle_ of the Six collection.
“The _Young woman writing_ [No. 16] is without doubt the picture in the
Beit collection in London. This was in the Héris sale at Brussels in
1857.
“The _Young woman adorning herself_ [No. 17] is _The Pearl Necklace_ in
the Berlin Museum.
“The _Young woman at the harpsichord_ [No. 18] is either the picture in
the National Gallery or that in the Beit collection, or perhaps that in
the Salting collection [now also at the National Gallery].
“It is believed that the portrait in ancient costume [No. 19] is the
portrait of the young girl in the Museum at the Hague [my frontispiece].
“[Nos. 20 and 21.] Finally, since at the Hendrik Borgh sale in 1720
one _Astrologer_ and its pendant were sold for 160 fls.; and since two
_Astrologers_ and a pendant were sold at the Neyman sale in 1797 for
270 and 132 fls., it may be deduced that the pendants of the 1696 sale
are either the two _Geographers_ which belong at the present day to
the Museum at Frankfort and to M. Du Bus de Gisegnies at Brussels; or
one only of these and M. Alphonse de Rothschild’s _Astronomer_.”
To these remarks of M. Vanzype may be added that No. 1 is the picture
recently exhibited in London and now in Mr. Widener’s collection, and
No. 3 is probably the Czernin picture. No. 9 might be the Brunswick
painting. This leaves us only with two of the Amsterdam sale pictures
to discover--No. 5, _A nobleman in his room_, and No. 15, _View of
several houses_. But, of course, certain others which M. Vanzype and I
think we have traced may be wholly different. M. Vanzype furthermore
remarks: “Other pictures have at certain times been heard of and have
since disappeared, notably the ‘_Dévideuse_’ discussed in 1865 by
Bürger and an English connoisseur, which was then in England, but of
which no trace has since been found.”
Among the thirty-nine that are known, although there are many interiors
such as the painter loved, there is, remember, only one woodland
scene, only one pure landscape, only one religious subject, only one
real portrait, only one street scene, only one kitchen scene, only one
purely classical subject, only one family scene. The isolation of these
examples fills one with a kind of fury. No painter, and especially no
painter with such an interest in the difficulties of his art, such
a painter’s painter, so to speak, as Vermeer, and moreover a man
with eight children and a clamorous baker--no painter paints only one
landscape, especially when the result is so commandingly successful
as the “View of Delft.” Where are the others? (M. Vanzype has found a
replica, but it is not generally accepted.) No painter is satisfied
with one attempt at a beautiful façade. Where are the others? (We know
there was one other.) No painter paints only one classical subject.
Where are the others? (Mr. Paterson’s example is only half-classical:
classical with a domestic flavour: a family scene in masquerade, to
be exact.) No painter paints only one religious subject. Where are
the others? No painter paints only one portrait pure and simple as
distinguished from portrait and _genre_. M. Vanzype, it is true, claims
to have found another; but that would make only two. How indeed would
he be allowed to paint no others, when he was Vermeer of Delft and
lived in an age of Dutch prosperity and Dutch interest in art? Where
are the others? Do you see how one feels--how maddening it is that
these bare forty are all, when one knows that there must have been many
more?
Vermeer may, of course, have himself destroyed some, as Claude Monet
recently destroyed a number of his. But I do not think so; he could
not have afforded to, and he was not that kind. No: they still exist
somewhere. And the question where are they brings us back to the
wealth of Mr. Pierpont Morgan, for which I was wishing at the beginning
of this essay. With it I would furnish expeditions not to discover
the Poles north and south, because I care nothing for them; not to
conquer the air, because I love too much to feel my feet on this green
earth; not to break banks or to finance companies; not to kill the
gentle giraffe for America’s museums; but simply to hunt among the
byways of Northern Europe in the hope of coming upon another work
by that exquisite Delft hand. That is how I would spend my money;
and incidentally what charming adventures one would have, and what
subsidiary treasure one would gather! That would be an expedition worth
making, even if the prime object of the search always eluded us.