Painting
A woman wearing modest clothing is sitting alone in a dimly lit room. She is holding a balance. There is a painting of the ‘Last Judgement’ in the background. In front of her is a mirror and table. Gold jewellery and pearls are lying in open boxes on the table. The woman seems to be pregnant. She has a calm expression on her face and is fully focussed on the balance. A small patch of light entering through the corner window washes the wall in white.
Composition
• Designed to focus our attention on the scales
• Vermeer endowed it with more allegorical context than his other domestic scenes
• An image of a pure, serene silence in a dim room lit by the light from a window is typical of Vermeer
• Vermeer’s belief: Silence=Purity
• Vermeer’s soft brushwork brings out the maternal tenderness in the woman
• Woman in painting is pregnant-> about to be blessed by a child-> but does not have to put up with the chore and responsibility that came with it yet. This parallels with Vermeer’s own life. He had eleven children. He requested to work in total silence but could not obtain that due to children running around
• Vermeer was not a rich man
• The use of lights: The light from the window and the woman, and the surrounding darkness creates a beautiful compositional balance which is often used by Vermeer in his other paintings. This compositional balance alludes to the balance in the woman’s hands
• Typical Vermeer piece but beautiful in its harmony of light and shadows
• Woman has no knowledge of our viewership. We have no interaction with her
• Colour combinations of blue and yellow were Vermeer’s favourite
• The painting-within-a-painting is characteristic of Vermeer’s detailed and intricate portrait style
• Light and shadow interplay create a serene mood
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