Encore: Woman Holding a Balance by Johannes Vermeer

While I’m taking a break, I thought you might enjoy this encore presentation of a popular episode from 2019—the gorgeous Woman Holding a Balance at the National Gallery of Art. If you want to follow along, you can find it at alonglookpodcast.com/vermeer. 

And make sure to stick around to the end for a special announcement!

SHOW NOTES (TRANSCRIPT BELOW)

“A Long Look” themes are “Easy” by Ron Gelinas https://youtu.be/2QGe6skVzSs and “At the Cafe with You” by Onion All Stars https://pixabay.com/users/onion_all_stars-33331904/

Episode theme is “Caro Mio Ben in C Major” by Giuseppe Giordani, performed by Joel Meza.
https://soundcloud.com/joel-meza-1/caro-mio-ben-in-c-major

Women Holding a Balance information
https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.1236.html

https://www.nga.gov/collection/highlights/vermeer-woman-holding-a-balance.html

Vermeer information
https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.1951.html

Essential Vermeer website (extensive amount of info!)
https://www.essentialvermeer.com

Widener information
Dutch Paintings at the National Gallery of Art: The Untold Stories behind the Acquisitions of the Rembrandts, Vermeers, and Other Treasures in the Collection (audio)
https://www.nga.gov/global-site-search-page.html?searchterm=wheelock+audio

RECOMMENDED READING
Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting by Adriaan Waiboer, et al. Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, 2017.

Exhibit brochure
https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/exhibitions/pdfs/2017/vermeer-brochurel.pdf

Vermeer: Faith in Art by Daniel Arasse

TRANSCRIPT

Hi everybody, Karen here!

While I’m taking a break, I thought you might enjoy this encore presentation of a popular episode from 2019: the gorgeous Woman Holding a Balance by Vermeer at the National Gallery of Art. If you want to follow along, you can find it at alonglookpodcast.com/vermeer.

And make sure to stick around to the end for a special announcement!

MUSIC

So what do you first notice?

Gleaming strands of pearls and gold spill out of a small chest sitting on a table with its lid open. More jewelry lies in front of the chest, mixing in with coins that are piled up and scattered across the tabletop. The pearls are a luminous dark grey. The gold chains are painted with shades of dark yellow with light yellow highlights making them shine.

The table sits against a wall under a small framed mirror next to a window and in front of it stands a beautiful young woman. She ignores the mirror and window and instead tilts her head to look down at a small jeweler’s balance held delicately in her raised right hand. Her pinky is extended and its pans are still and even. She’s just right of center and takes up most of the right side of the canvas. The painting is only about 16 x 14 inches, so not that big.

Her left hand rests on the table. Nearby is an azure blue cloth bunched up on the corner closest to us. She looks lost in thought.

The young woman wears a loose long white cap that frames her face and a hip length denim blue velvet jacket. It has ¾ sleeves and is trimmed with white fur. Vermeer does such a great job with that fur, you can almost feel it. Her jacket parts at the bottom to reveal a long orange skirt. Her stomach seems to protrude, like she might be pregnant.

The room is bathed in cool, soft light coming in through the window high on the upper left which is framed by orange drapes. The walls are medium grey and dark shadows fill the space under the window and around the table. The light streaming in illuminates her, the jewelry and the painting hanging right behind her, which looks like a Last Judgement scene. You can see Christ surrounded by a gold aura with several figures lined up on either side. There’s kind of a mountainous landscape below them and in front of it are people standing or milling about, some with their arms reaching up to Christ. The painting which is in a black and gold frame takes up the top right quarter of the canvas.

The scene is incredibly still like it’s frozen in time.

It’s also so mysterious. This isn’t just an image of a woman in her home, there’s definitely more going on here. So who is she and what is she weighing?

MUSIC

This gorgeous painting has provoked a lot of speculation about its meaning. There’s the religious symbolism of the Last Judgement painting, the overflowing chest of pearls and gold chains, that rich fabric draped over the corner and even the mirror. All of these things had meaning in Vermeer’s society. The Dutch had developed a visual language many years before that served as kind of a shorthand for different ideas. The fun part is figuring it out!

The woman stands between symbols of the earthly world–those gleaming pearls–and judgement in the afterlife, literally illustrated on the wall behind her. The mirror in front of her could represent self-reflection or vanity.

Different interpretations seem to focus on the idea of her weighing something in the balance, although it’s almost impossible to see if there’s anything actually in the pans. When you zoom in really closely, you can see highlights on the pans but to me, they appear empty. But earlier writers were convinced she was weighing pearls or gold. The painting was even referred to as the Goldweigher or the Girl Weighing Pearls. That whole question of whether or not there’s anything there has actually been debated for ages.

However, the Gallery’s site says that microscopic examination shows that what appear to be objects in the balance are painted with different paints and techniques than the gold and pearls on the table. So their interpretation is that the pans are empty and what we’re seeing are just the reflections on the metal of light coming in through the window. And speaking of painting technique, the way Vermeer gets those pearls to gleam so beautifully is he paints them in two layers–a round thin grey layer on bottom with a white highlight on top.

The other question that’s been debated for ages is whether or not she’s pregnant! One theory says she’s dressed in the latest fashion–a thickly padded skirt under a short jacket. But Arthur Wheelock, the retired curator of Northern European art at the Gallery, writes that he came round to the idea that she probably is pregnant based on her posture and because the model was probably Vermeer’s wife Catharina. Given that she had 11 children, it’s entirely possible! How does that affect the meaning of the painting? Well, one theory is she could be considered a secular version of the Virgin Mary. There apparently were well known ideas about Mary contemplating scales as anticipating Christ’s life, crucifixion, and the foundation of the Church.

An essay on the site explains that the religious overtones could be related to the teachings of St. Ignatius of Loyola. He wrote a series of spiritual exercises recommending that before meditating, people need to “examine their conscience and weigh their sins as if facing Judgment Day. Only such introspection could lead to virtuous choices along the path of life.”

Vermeer had been Protestant from birth but when he married Catharina Bolnes, who was Catholic, he converted, probably at the insistence of his new mother-in-law. So he would have known about the writings of St. Ignatius through contact with the Jesuits.

So the painting could be a reminder to live our lives in balance and moderation. She could be weighing her life choices. But her calm expression may reflect her acceptance of self-knowledge, of finding balance in her life.

The surprising thing I learned was that when the painting was first done, it wasn’t framed and hung on a wall, it was placed in a kind of cabinet that hung on the wall. You had to open two doors to see it. The idea was you wouldn’t just glance at it walking down the hall, you had to choose to view it. Looking in this deliberate way was meant as a kind of meditation. Just imagine that experience! The doors swing open and here’s this serene, glowing scene.

There’s a great story about how the work became part of the collection. Woman Holding a Balance was donated to the Gallery by the Widener family. P.A.B. Widener (YD-NER) was one of the first donors to the Gallery, handing over a large collection of Dutch art.

He started out working in a butcher shop selling meat to the Union troops during the Civil War. Later on he got into street cars and transportation around Philadelphia, where he lived, and became very wealthy.

Widener was collecting in the late 1800s around the time of the US centennial and America was becoming fascinated with the Dutch and their history. An historian named John Motley had written a history about the Dutch revolution against Spain called “The Rise of the Dutch Republic.” He describes how the brave, Protestant, hard-working Dutch had fought off a distant, tyrannical king to start a new self-governing nation. Sound familiar? Motley even equates the leaders of the revolutions, William the Silent and George Washington. So it’s no wonder Americans just loved this book and felt a great connection to the Dutch. And Dutch art celebrated their independence and the prosperity that followed. So all these scenes of people enjoying themselves in their homes and taverns and celebrating their luxuries would have definitely appealed to Widener.

Despite all these high-brow principals though, Widener was able to buy the painting because of a very down to earth opportunity… changes to tax laws in England and the US. The English government instituted a death tax which meant a lot of aristocratic families had to sell their artworks and other luxuries to pay it. At the same time, the US government eliminated an import tax on art. So Widener jumped at the opening and bought several important works, including Woman Holding a Balance.

The Gallery has made some really interesting discoveries about this painting since this episode first ran, so make sure to check out its expanded webpage on the Gallery’s site, I’ll include a link in the show notes.

Announcement

I want to thank all of you who took the survey, your responses were really helpful. It was so interesting to find out that most of you discovered the show just by browsing through your apps and alot of you like looking at the works online while listening to the descriptions! 

One person raised a great issue–why I keep repeating the show description in every episode. I totally get it’s repetitive but I was taught it’s good practice to give new listeners an idea of what the show’s about in the opening. Plus the show’s so unusual, it’s the only podcast that provides this really unique kind of guided tour through a work of art! So, I had to find a way to explain that.  

I knew it was a little long, so I’ve tweaked it over the years to try to balance all that out. The recent version is just over 30 secs, so when you hit that fast forward button, you get into the good stuff faster. Thanks to whoever mentioned that, I’m sure a lot of people wondered about that!

But the very best feedback was that all of you recommend the show and want it to continue. I am amazed and gratified so many of you talked about how it’s a break from the noise, that you find it relaxing, even grounding. 

So, I’ve decided to continue A Long Look at least through 2025 when I’ll reach the 100th episode!! New episodes begin in February and you can follow me @alonglookpodcast on IG for updates!

As always, thanks for listening!