Page:Hofstede de Groot catalogue raisonné, Volume 1, 1908.djvu/606

 582 JOHANNES VERMEER SECT. CATALOGUE RAISONNE 1. CHRIST IN THE HOUSE OF MARY AND MARTHA. The figures are life-size. On the right Christ sits in an arm-chair at a table j his head is in profile to the left. He speaks to Martha, who stands behind the table holding a basket of bread. He points out Mary to her with His right hand. Alary sits to the left at Christ's feet, leaning her head on her right hand and resting her left hand on her lap. She looks in profile to the right at Christ and listens attentively to His words. Christ has long brown curls, and wears a blue and purple dress. The type of His face and His attitude seem to recall an old Venetian picture. Martha's dress is a yellow check, with a red border and white sleeves ; she wears a light yellow cap, a red fur, and a striped white waist-band. Mary is dressed in blue and red, and wears a cap striped in white and red. On the table is a white cloth, under the left-hand corner of which a Turkey carpet is to be s,een. In the background is a plain brown wooden parti- tion, with a slight effect of light to the left. Martha's left sleeve is somewhat out of tone. Still the two shades of blue are well harmonised, as well as the different shades of yellow in the cap, the basket, the table- cloth, and the faces. The clothes are very broadly painted, and the faces are rendered with broad strokes. Some repainting by the artist is to be noticed in the left hand of Christ. The index-finger, now separate, was originally close to the other fingers ; the edges of the finger-nail may still be traced in the old position. Signed in full in the lower left-hand corner, on the bench upon which Mary is sitting. In the possession of the dealers Forbes and Paterson, London, in April 1901. Now in the W. A. Coats collection, Skelmorlie Castle, Scotland. 2. ALLEGORY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. B. 41, H. 46. A woman in a blue and white dress sits on a dai's, which is covered with a carpet, near a table. Her left foot rests on a globe ; she lays her right hand on her breast and leans with the left on a corner of the table. She gazes upward with a devout look. On the table, which is covered with a carpet, are a cloth and an open Bible ; near it are a cup and a crucifix, relieved against a strip of gilt leather on the wall. Behind the woman is a large picture of Christ crucified, with Mary and John, the original of which, by Jordaens, is now in the Ecole Teirinck, at Antwerp. On the white and dark tiles in front of the woman lies the apple of Paradise. Farther forward a serpent coils itself; it has been wounded by a large block of veined stone and is bleeding. In the left foreground hangs a large Gobelins tapestry, on which the figures of a horseman and of a man on foot may be distinguished. The tapestry partly covers a chair, on which is a blue cushion. An unseen window at the back is reflected in a glass ball which hangs by a blue ribbon from a cross-beam in the ceiling. A strong light falls from the left foreground on the woman.