01 Paintings, The amorous game, Part 45 - With Footnotes

Johannes Vermeer, (1632–1675)

The Procuress, c. 1656

Oil on canvas

Height: 1,430 mm (56.29 ″); Width: 1,300 mm (51.18 ″)

Old Masters Picture Gallery Dresden 

The woman in black, the leering coupler, "in a nun's costume", could be the eponymous procuress, while the man to her right, "wearing a black beret and a doublet with slashed sleeves", has been identified as a self portrait of the artist. 


The man, a soldier, in the red jacket is fondling the young woman's breast and dropping a coin into her outstretched hand. According to Benjamin Binstock the painting could be understood as a psychological portrait of his adopted family. Vermeer is in the painting as a musician, in the employ of the madam. Vermeer used his family as models; the whore could be Vermeer's wife Catherina and the lewd soldier her brother Willem. More on this painting

Johannes, Jan or Johan Vermeer (1632 – December 1675) was a Dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. Vermeer was a moderately successful provincial genre painter in his lifetime. He evidently was not wealthy, leaving his wife and children in debt at his death, perhaps because he produced relatively few paintings.

Vermeer worked slowly and with great care, and frequently used very expensive pigments. He is particularly renowned for his masterly treatment and use of light in his work.

He was recognized during his lifetime in Delft and The Hague, but his modest celebrity gave way to obscurity after his death. In the 19th century, Vermeer was rediscovered by Gustav Friedrich Waagen and Théophile Thoré-Bürger, who published an essay attributing 66 pictures to him, although only 34 paintings are universally attributed to him today. Since that time, Vermeer's reputation has grown, and he is now acknowledged as one of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age. More Vermeer

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