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The Procuress
Dirck van Baburen (Dutch, 1590 to 1595–1624)
1622
Medium/Technique
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
101.6 x 107.6 cm (40 x 42 3/8 in.)
Credit Line
M. Theresa B. Hopkins Fund
Accession Number50.2721
CollectionsEurope
ClassificationsPaintings
The hand gestures tell the story: an amorous male client negotiates with an elderly woman for the favors of a cheerful young lute player. (This musical instrument was often a symbol of love.) Baburen was one of several painters from the Dutch city of Utrecht who went to study in Rome in the 1610s; works by three of them grace this wall. All were deeply influenced by the Italian painter Caravaggio, and their works share a style: close-up views of life-sized figures, shown half-length, and modeled with dramatic contrasts of light and shadow. This painting, or a copy of it, was owned by Vermeer’s family, and it appears in the background of two of the painter’s works.
InscriptionsLower left, on base of lute: TBaburen f 16 [...] (T anb B joined)
Provenance1641, possibly Maria Thins (b. about 1593 - d. 1680), Delft [see note 1]; possibly by inheritance to her daughter, Catharina Bolnes (b. 1631 - d. 1688) and her husband, Johannes Vermeer (b. 1632 - d. 1675), Delft [see note 2]; possibly by inheritance to their son, Johannes Johannesz. Vermeer (b. about 1663 - d. 1713), Delft [see note 3]. Possibly Sir Hans Sloane (b. 1660 - d. 1753), London [see note 4]; possibly by descent within the Sloane family to Lt. Col. Ronald Francis Assheton Sloane-Stanley (b. 1867 - d. 1949), Cowes, Isle of Wight; February 25, 1949, Sloane-Stanley sale, Christie's, London, lot 52 [see note 5], to Colnaghi on behalf of Roderic Thesiger (dealer), Beaconsfield, England; 1950, sold by Thesiger to the MFA for $1960. (Accession Date: June 8, 1950)
NOTES:
[1] Maria Thins (or Tin) was divorced from her husband, Reinier Bolnes, in 1641. A document of November 27, 1641 that divides the marital property lists "A painting of a procuress pointing in the hand" ("Een schilderije daer en coppelerste die in de hant wijst"); this has been identified with the MFA painting. See Albert Blankert, Vermeer of Delft: Complete edition of the paintings (Oxford: Phaidon, 1978), pp. 145-146, document 7. However, Wayne Franits has cast doubts on this hypothesis, suggesting instead that the Thins family owned a replica of the MFA work; see The Paintings of Dirck van Baburen, ca 1592/93 - 1624: Catalogue Raisonné (Amsterdam, 2013), cat. A23, pp. 128-129.
[2] The artist Johannes Vermeer incorporated the MFA picture (or, possibly, a copy after it; see above, n. 1) into the background of two of his own paintings: The Concert, about 1665-66 (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston) and A Lady Seated at the Virginals, about 1673-75 (National Gallery, London).
[3] Ben Broos, Great Dutch Paintings from America (exh. cat. Mauritshuis, The Hague, 1990), cat. no. 5, pp. 149-152. It is not known for certain what happened to the articles in the artist's estate after his death; Anthony van Leeuwenhoek was the estate adminstrator.
[4] This painting has not been identified among the documents of the collector Sir Hans Sloane, but the fact that its owner in 1949, Col. Sloane-Stanley, was his descendent has led to the hypothesis that it was passed down in the family. When it was purchased in 1950, the painting's frame had an old, English language inscription on it, suggesting that it had been in England since the eighteenth or early nineteenth century. See Broos 1990 (as above, n. 3) and a letter from Thesiger to W. G. Constable of the MFA (March 15, 1950), in the MFA object file.
[5] Attributed in the auction catalogue to Honthorst.
NOTES:
[1] Maria Thins (or Tin) was divorced from her husband, Reinier Bolnes, in 1641. A document of November 27, 1641 that divides the marital property lists "A painting of a procuress pointing in the hand" ("Een schilderije daer en coppelerste die in de hant wijst"); this has been identified with the MFA painting. See Albert Blankert, Vermeer of Delft: Complete edition of the paintings (Oxford: Phaidon, 1978), pp. 145-146, document 7. However, Wayne Franits has cast doubts on this hypothesis, suggesting instead that the Thins family owned a replica of the MFA work; see The Paintings of Dirck van Baburen, ca 1592/93 - 1624: Catalogue Raisonné (Amsterdam, 2013), cat. A23, pp. 128-129.
[2] The artist Johannes Vermeer incorporated the MFA picture (or, possibly, a copy after it; see above, n. 1) into the background of two of his own paintings: The Concert, about 1665-66 (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston) and A Lady Seated at the Virginals, about 1673-75 (National Gallery, London).
[3] Ben Broos, Great Dutch Paintings from America (exh. cat. Mauritshuis, The Hague, 1990), cat. no. 5, pp. 149-152. It is not known for certain what happened to the articles in the artist's estate after his death; Anthony van Leeuwenhoek was the estate adminstrator.
[4] This painting has not been identified among the documents of the collector Sir Hans Sloane, but the fact that its owner in 1949, Col. Sloane-Stanley, was his descendent has led to the hypothesis that it was passed down in the family. When it was purchased in 1950, the painting's frame had an old, English language inscription on it, suggesting that it had been in England since the eighteenth or early nineteenth century. See Broos 1990 (as above, n. 3) and a letter from Thesiger to W. G. Constable of the MFA (March 15, 1950), in the MFA object file.
[5] Attributed in the auction catalogue to Honthorst.