Christ in the House of Martha and Mary (Vermeer)
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''Christ in the House of Martha and Mary'' (Dutch: ''Christus in het huis van Martha en Maria'') is a painting finished in 1655 by the
Dutch Golden Age painter Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history roughly spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) for Dutch independence. The new Dutch Republi ...
Johannes Vermeer Johannes Vermeer ( , , see below; also known as Jan Vermeer; October 1632 – 15 December 1675) was a Dutch Baroque Period painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. During his lifetime, he was a moderately succe ...
. It is now in the
Scottish National Gallery The Scottish National Gallery (formerly the National Gallery of Scotland) is the national art gallery of Scotland. It is located on The Mound in central Edinburgh, close to Princes Street. The building was designed in a neoclassical style by W ...
in
Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
. It is the largest painting by Vermeer and one of the very few with an overt religious motive. The story of Christ visiting the household of the two sisters Mary and Martha goes back to the New Testament. The work has also been called ''Christ in the House of Mary and Martha'' (reversing the last two names).


Painting materials

The pigment analysis of this painting reveals the use of the pigments of the
baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including ...
period such as
madder lake Alizarin (also known as 1,2-dihydroxyanthraquinone, Mordant Red 11, C.I. 58000, and Turkey Red) is an organic compound with formula that has been used throughout history as a prominent red dye, principally for dyeing textile fabrics. Historic ...
,
yellow ochre Ochre ( ; , ), or ocher in American English, is a natural clay earth pigment, a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand. It ranges in colour from yellow to deep orange or brown. It is also the name of the colours produced ...
,
vermilion Vermilion (sometimes vermillion) is a color, color family, and pigment most often made, since antiquity until the 19th century, from the powdered mineral cinnabar (a form of mercury sulfide, which is toxic) and its corresponding color. It i ...
and
lead white White lead is the basic lead carbonate 2PbCO3·Pb(OH)2. It is a complex salt, containing both carbonate and hydroxide ions. White lead occurs naturally as a mineral, in which context it is known as hydrocerussite, a hydrate of cerussite. It was ...
. Vermeer did not paint the robe of Christ with his usual blue pigment of choice
ultramarine Ultramarine is a deep blue color pigment which was originally made by grinding lapis lazuli into a powder. The name comes from the Latin ''ultramarinus'', literally 'beyond the sea', because the pigment was imported into Europe from mines in Afg ...
(see for example '' The Milkmaid'') but with a mixture of smalt,
indigo Indigo is a deep color close to the color wheel blue (a primary color in the RGB color space), as well as to some variants of ultramarine, based on the ancient dye of the same name. The word "indigo" comes from the Latin word ''indicum'', ...
and lead white.


See also

*
Martha Martha (Hebrew: מָרְתָא‎) is a biblical figure described in the Gospels of Luke and John. Together with her siblings Lazarus and Mary of Bethany, she is described as living in the village of Bethany near Jerusalem. She was witness ...
*
Mary of Bethany Mary of Bethany is a biblical figure mentioned only by name in the Gospel of John in the Christian New Testament. Together with her siblings Lazarus and Martha, she is described by John as living in the village of Bethany, a small village in Jud ...
*
List of paintings by Johannes Vermeer The following is a list of paintings by the Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675). After two or three early history paintings, he concentrated almost entirely on genre works, typically interiors with one or two figures. His popul ...
*
Dutch Golden Age painting Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history roughly spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) for Dutch independence. The new Dutch Republ ...


References


Further reading

*


External links


National Galleries of Scotland web page on the painting



Vermeercentrum
housed at the site of the former St. Lucas Guild in Delft.
''Vermeer and The Delft School''
a full text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on the painting (see index)
''The Milkmaid'' by Johannes Vermeer
exhibition catalog fully online as PDF from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on the painting
Johannes Vermeer, ''Christ in the House of Martha and Mary''
Colourlex {{Authority control (arts) Religious paintings by Johannes Vermeer 1655 paintings Paintings in the National Galleries of Scotland Paintings depicting Jesus