''The Concert'' (Dutch: ''Het concert'') ( 1664) is a painting by the Dutch artist

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 ...

depicting a man and two women performing music. It was stolen on March 18, 1990 from the

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts, which houses significant examples of European, Asian, and American art. Its collection includes paintings, sculpture, tapestries, and decorative arts. It was found ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

and remains missing. Experts believe it may be the most valuable stolen object in the world; as of 2015, it was valued at US$250 million.

History

Although ''The Concert'' has been dated stylistically to the mid-1660s, it is first documented only in 1780. It was acquired by

Isabella Stewart Gardner Isabella Stewart Gardner (April 14, 1840 – July 17, 1924) was a leading American art collector, philanthropist, and patron of the arts. She founded the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Gardner possessed an energetic intellectual cu ...

in an 1892 auction in Paris for $5,000 and subsequently displayed in the

. On the night of March 18, 1990, thieves disguised as policemen stole 13 works from the museum, including ''The Concert''. To this day the painting has not resurfaced; it is thought to be the most valuable work currently unrecovered, with a value estimated at US$250 million.

Description

The picture measures 28.5 by 25.5 inches (72.5 by 64.7 centimetres) and shows three musicians: a young woman sitting at a harpsichord, a man playing the lute, and a woman who is singing. The harpsichord's upturned lid is decorated with an Arcadian landscape; its bright coloring stands in contrast to the two paintings hanging on the wall to the right and left. A

viola da gamba The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitch ...

can be seen lying on the floor. The musicians' clothing and surroundings identify them as members of the upper bourgeoisie. The male lute player, for instance, wears a shoulder belt and a sword. Despite its simplicity, the black and white marble flooring is luxurious and expensive. Of the two paintings in the background, the one on the right is '' The Procuress'' by

Dirck Van Baburen Dirck Jaspersz. van Baburen (c. 1595 – 21 February 1624) was a Dutch painter and one of the Utrecht Caravaggisti. Biography Dirck van Baburen was probably born in Wijk bij Duurstede, but his family moved to Utrecht when he was still youn ...

(c. 1622), which belonged to Vermeer's mother-in-law,

Maria Thins Maria Thins (c. 1593 – 27 December 1680) was the mother-in-law of Johannes Vermeer and a member of the Gouda Thins family. Life Maria was born in Gouda. In 1622 she married Reynier Bolnes, a prominent and prosperous brickmaker. In 1635 the ma ...

. The work also appears in his ''

Lady Seated at a Virginal ''Lady Seated at a Virginal'' (Dutch: ''Zittende virginaalspeelster''), also known as ''Young Woman Seated at a Virginal'', is a genre painting created by the Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer in about 1670–1672 and now in the Nation ...

'', probably painted some six years after ''The Concert''. The painting on the left is a wild pastoral landscape. The musical theme in Dutch painting in Vermeer's time often connoted

love Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest interpersonal affection, to the simplest pleasure. An example of this range of meanings is that the love o ...

and seduction, but in this case the feeling is more ambiguous. Although the presence of Van Baburen's sexually exuberant picture suggests such an interpretation, its function may be to provide a contrast with the actual domestic situation. In the same way, the peaceful scenes depicted on the harpsichord contrast with the wild landscape painting on the wall.

Other arts

Even before the actual robbery, the theft of this painting was the subject of a 1964 episode of '' The Alfred Hitchcock Hour'' called "Ten Minutes from Now". Following the real theft, the stolen painting has figured in TV and animated series as well as two novels: ''An Object of Beauty'' by

Steve Martin Stephen Glenn Martin (born August 14, 1945) is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer, and musician. He has won five Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and was awarded an Honorary Academy Award in 2013. Additionally, he was nominate ...

(2010) and ''

The Medusa Plot ''The Medusa Plot'' is the first book in the '' Cahills vs. Vespers'' series. The book was written by Gordon Korman and released on August 30, 2011. The story picks up two years after the original series '' The 39 Clues'' and is about the Cahills' ...

'' by

Gordon Korman Gordon Korman (born October 23, 1963) is a Canadian American author. Korman has written 100 children's and young adult fiction books. Korman's books have sold more than 30 million copies worldwide over a career spanning four decades and have appe ...

(2011). In

Tracy Chevalier Tracy Rose Chevalier (born 19 October 1962) is an American-British novelist. She is best known for her second novel, '' Girl with a Pearl Earring'', which was adapted as a 2003 film starring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth. Personal backgr ...

's historical novel '' Girl with a Pearl Earring'' (1999), Vermeer paints ''The Concert'' at the same time that he is painting '' Girl with a Pearl Earring'', an event also portrayed in the 2003 film adaptation.Linda Costanzo Cahir, ''Literature into Film: Theory and Practical Approaches'', McFarland, 2014
p.252
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References

Bibliography

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External links