Privately-Owned Vermeer Gets Philadelphia Showcase

This Vermeer will be on display again at the Philadelphia Museum according to GalleristNY which points out that the $30m work sold at Sotheby’s in London in 2004 to Steve Wynn who showed it at the Philadelphia Museum briefly before selling it to the Leiden Gallery which is making the loan. Wynn’s lack of enthusiasm for the work and quiet sale after owning it for four years suggests the work has had trouble exciting the trophy buyers. Perhaps the reflected glory of the Frick’s show will help get the juices flowing for another deep-pocketed buyer:

A Young Woman Seated at a Virginal is the last painting by the Sphinx of Delft in a private collection. (Although the circa 1663–1666 The Concert, which was stolen from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990, is also presumably in private hands at the moment.) Including The Concert, there are only 36 known paintings by the artist.

The work is also the most recent Vermeer to be authenticated.When it was purchased in 1960 by the art collector Baron Frédéric Rolin, many scholars believed it was a forgery, though subsequent tests won over many experts.

Last Privately Owned Vermeer Loaned to Philadelphia Museum of Art (GalleristNY)