The Association holds evening meetings in the elegant Arts-and-Crafts lecture hall of the Art Workers Guild, 6 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AT (Bloomsbury; nearest tube Russell Square, Piccadilly Line). They usually start at 6.30. There are also occasional Visits, both to Fellows’ studios, and to other places of interest.

Wednesday 29th February at 6.30pm: The ‘Newest’ Vermeer – How Technical Research Convinced the Doubting Scholars

Presented by Libby Sheldon

 

The only painting by Vermeer in private ownership, the tiny Young Woman Seated at the Virginalhas been on display in the UK for the first time since it was sold in 2004, first at the Fitzwilliam and now at the Ashmolean, Oxford until September. Ten years previously it was believed by many to be a  nineteenth-century pastiche or a twentieth-century fake. It proved relatively uproblematic to show it was earlier, but even if it was of a contemporary date, why should it be by Vermeer?  

 

The talk will explain the research trail followed by Libby Sheldon, Catherine Hassall and Nicola Costaras, (and help from many other colleagues in the UK and abroad) to find the author of the painting, and presents the compelling technical evidence unearthed that led to its final attribution. It came to them in a Jiffy bag and left for the final time in a specially-made box and two bodyguards. What had made the difference?

 

Libby Sheldon is a paint analyst/historian and a lecturer at UCL. She has made in-depth studies of the techniques of Vermeer and the Pre-Raphaelites, has been closely involved in the Making Art in Tudor Britainproject and is starting a research project on Aelbert Cuyp. Her main research interest is the historic employment of pigments.

 

 

For further information about meetings please contact the BAPCR secretary, Samantha Robinson by email or telephone 01372 468143.