| Artist | Attributed to Johannes Vermeer |
|---|---|
| Year | circa 1655 |
| Type | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 102 cm × 83 cm (40 in × 33 in) |
| Location | Private collection |
Saint Praxedis is an oil painting which has been attributed to Johannes Vermeer, although there is much disagreement among experts about this.[1][2][3] It is generally believed to be a copy of a work by Felice Ficherelli, although this has also been questioned.[2] It depicts the early Roman martyr, Saint Praxedis or Praxedes. If by Vermeer, it may be his earliest surviving work.[1]
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The painting shows the saint squeezing a martyred Christian's blood from a sponge into an ornate vessel. It is closely related to a work by Ficherelli from 1640-5, now in the Collection Fergmani in Ferrara, and is generally assumed to be a copy of it (though see below for an alternative interpretation). The most obvious difference between the two is that the Ferrara work lacks the crucifix in the saint's hands.[1] If the painting is indeed by Vermeer and the date on it is correct, then it is one of his earliest-surviving paintings, roughly contemporary with Christ in the House of Martha and Mary and Diana and Her Companions, as well as being his only known close copy of another work.[1][3]
The painting's provenance before the mid-twentieth century is unknown. In 1943 the collector Jacob Reder bought it at a minor auction house in New York, and he owned it until his death in 1969. It was being shown as a Fichirelli at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1969 when Michael Kitson, reviewing the exhibition it was part of, first proposed it as a work by Vermeer. Following Reder's death it was bought by the art dealer Spencer A. Samuels, who also believed it to be a Vermeer. The Barbara Piasecka Johnson Collection Foundation bought it from Spencer in 1987.[3][4] The leading Vermeer scholar Arthur Wheelock subsequently argued the case for the attribution to Vermeer in an article devoted to it in 1986.[2][3] Its current whereabouts are unknown.[5]
The painting has two signatures. The more obvious of the two reads "Meer 1655", while the second appears as "Meer N R o o". It is possible that this second signature originally read "Meer naar Riposo", or "Vermeer after Riposo": Riposo was Ficherelli's nickname. While Wheelock's examination led him to conclude that both signatures were original, another Vermeer expert, the conservator Jørgen Wadum, has argued that the first was added to the painting long after its completion, and that the second is too "rudimentary" for anything to be concluded about it.[1][2]
The paints used point to a seventeenth-century origin for the painting, while some aspects of their use suggest it is a Dutch rather than Italian work. Wheelock identifies stylistic similarities with two history paintings which are universally attributed to Vermeer. He also notes similarities between the depiction of the saint's face and the figure in Vermeer's A Girl Asleep and argues that the painter's conversion to Catholicism would have given him an interest in the subject matter.[3] Although it is thought unlikely that the Ferrera painting ever left Italy, or that Vermeer visited Italy, Wheelock points out that he had a reputation as an authority on Italian art.[1][3]
In his 1998 article, Wadum states that he does not believe that the painting is a copy of the work in Ferrara, or indeed of any other work, because the background elements were painted before the foreground, as is typical of an original work rather than a copy. He also argues that distinctive wavy brush strokes found in the painting match those in at least three works attributed to Fichirelli, leading him to believe it is an original work by the Italian. He reserves judgement on the attribution of the work in Ferrera. In an interview from 2003, he restates his belief that the painting is not a Vermeer.[2][6] It is included in Wheelock's 1997 Vermeer: the Complete Works but not Walter Liedtke's 2008 Vermeer: the Complete Paintings.[7][8]