Paying to Look: Vermeer’s Seducing Image and the Dynamics of Seventeenth-Century Sex Work
Author: Alexandre Onézime Raymond Boucher, McGill University
Editor: Mathieu Lajoie
Introduction
Looking at seventeenth-century domestic paintings was an ambiguous undertaking as viewers peeking at a Dutch interior image penetrated its intimate world with their eyes. Vermeer’s A Young Woman Seated at a Virginal, painted between 1670 and 1672, is a genre painting that solicits this interaction (fig. 1). I argue that due to the absence of representation of the male patron in the image, the viewing dynamics involved in looking at Vermeer’s interior scene activates a performative exchange between the work, the artist and the viewer. This visual transaction mimics the trope of the Procuress, defined as a cultural myth inherited from the Renaissance, which involves 3 key characters: a brothel owner, also called a procuress, who is often shown offering to a male client the services of a younger female sex worker who works for her.[1] This trope, which is seen in images like Vermeer’s own The Procuress from 1656, is a symbol of paid love and exchange of sexual services (fig. 2). In Young Woman Seated at a Virginal, the sex worker presents the painting itself; by subject matter and elements depicted in its composition. The procuress then morphs into the artist, who attracts buyers and sells the picture for financial gain. In this scheme, the client disappears from the image as he comes to represent the patron and stands before the painting while sensually consuming it with his eyes in exchange for money.
Image as Sex Worker
The transaction embedded in the act of viewing A Young Woman Seated at a Virginal transforms Vermeer’s picture into the sex worker figure, visually associating the feminine and domesticity with sex work. Situating Vermeer’s image as a representation of the feminine begins with identifying its components and genre as such. As the title indicates, the central figure depicted is a lady seated at her keyboard instrument, looking out to the viewer in a moment of interruption. In this image, the virginal itself is a representation of femininity as it alludes to a woman’s virginity and sexual purity.[2] Beyond the elements depicted in the composition, the representation of the domestic Dutch interior further solidifies this image as a feminine entity. Idealized representations of the domestic space were tightly associated with femininity and womanhood, as the home was the domain of the upper-middle-class Dutch woman.[3] In this space, the married woman cared for her husband, educated her children and managed the house staff.[4] The home was her realm.
At first glance, A Young Woman Seated at a Virginal participates in the Dutch tradition that links womanhood with the domestic space, as the home was where middle-class women had the most power[5]. Still, the inclusion of Dirck van Baburen’s 1622 painting The Procuress, tucked in the top right corner of the composition, completely distorts the message communicated by Vermeer’s image (fig. 3). The second painting, which utilizes the trope of The Procuress as the central scene, brings attention to the possibility that the painting it is included within has a more ambiguous narrative. In Baburen’s image, the young female sex worker is making eye contact with a client and playing music to him while the procuress is requesting payment for the services by pointing at her outstretched hand, insinuating where the currency must go.[6] In Vermeer’s image, the young woman looks at the viewer beyond the canvas while simultaneously turning her back to Baburen's. This repetition transforms the wall on which The Procuress is hung in a mirroring plane where Vermeer’s character becomes Baburen’s sex worker, and the viewer becomes the client seeking out a sexual experience. This mise en abyme is then amplified by the similarity between the young girls’ blue, white and gold dresses seen in their respective images. Further tying A Young Woman Seated at a Virginal with sex work is the presence of a stringed instrument in both Vermeer and Baburen’s compositions. Although these instruments could represent sexual purity, they could also be signifiers of brothels and music houses, where they were used by young women for entertainment prior to engaging in sex work.[7]
Despite the association between women and sex work, one must acknowledge the existence of men who also partook in similar marginal activities. Indeed, at the time, promiscuous men, named pol, were involved in extramarital and unlawful acts, ranging from being a lover to a married woman to pandering.[8] Although they lived in proximity to female sex workers, they did not benefit from the same financial arrangements with their suitresses.[9] The notion that a surplus of women in disenfranchised communities, specifically in Amsterdam, caused sex work to be more prevalent among them as a means of survival and supports the conflation of femininity and sex work.[10] Through the inclusion of Baburen’s The Procuress, the feminine subject and themes depicted in Vermeer’s Young Woman Seated at a Virginal transform the painting into the object of desire in the transaction from the trope of The Procuress.
Artist as Procuress
The artist, in this case, Vermeer himself, steps into the role of the procuress as he creates a visually appealing and tantalizing image to attract a potential buyer and sell the work for financial capital. Although a procuress figure is typically represented as an old, haggard woman and Vermeer was a middle-aged man when Young Woman Seated at a Virginal was completed, the parallel between both figures falls back on their intermediate role connecting the commodified feminine and the patron/client.[11]
Creating genre paintings relied on the artist's inventiveness. Although seemingly realistic in execution, Dutch interior paintings were artistic creations developed in studios, away from real homes.[12] Idealized images of the domestic space, such as Young Woman Seated at a Virginal, communicated a message of morality, gender roles and economic and social status.[13] By depicting a young woman with silky white skin clad in a fashionable dress, Vermeer chose to portray an idealized version of upper-middle-class womanhood.[14] Additionally, the decorated virginal and Baburen’s painting in a gilded frame were other compositional choices made by the artist to construct an image that was in line with seventeenth-century trends.[15] By creating this detailed, fictional, yet fashionable image, Vermeer aimed to attract potential buyers by filling the viewers' eyes with desire.[16] Concurrently, the procuress also relied on idealization tactics to attract business to her brothel. A brothel owner would sometimes sell or lend expensive clothes made of silks and satins to new sex workers to allow them to emulate the fashions of upper-middle-class women.[17] In both instances, the commodified feminine entity is idealized into an enhanced version of itself by the artist/procuress figure and paraded to entice interest in a potential patron. In Young Woman Seated at a Virginal, the intervention of the artist is echoed by the creation and idealization of the image and by the presence of Vermeer’s signature on the wall behind the young woman, right below The Procuress (fig. 4). The signature, therefore, serves as an effigy for the artist, reminding the viewer of his presence and involvement in the creation of the painting.
Ultimately, the artist’s goal in creating an idealized domestic image was to earn a living by selling it to a patron.[18] The business of domestic paintings was quite lucrative, as an upper-middle-class Amsterdam family could own up to fifty paintings to decorate their homes.[19] The expanding art market produced an astounding five million images during the seventeenth century, ten percent of which were domestic and still-life paintings.[20] It was, therefore, necessary for a painter to catch clients’ eyes with an alluring image, as artists mostly did not follow a commission model but produced by speculating that buyers would be seduced by their artworks.[21]
Although a direct financial connection between the artist and patron has been established, it is necessary to add some nuance regarding how monetary transactions happened in the case of seventeenth-century sex work. It was common for patrons to pay sex workers directly for their services, giving the latter more agency in her financial situation.[22] The sex worker would then use the money to pay housing and clothing fees to the owner of the brothel.[23] The inclusion of Baburen’s The Procuress in Vermeer’s image is therefore crucial to my argument. In Baburen’s image, the procuress, representing the artist, crudely requests payment directly from the client to allow him access to the commodified feminine entity, breaking the traditional flow of currency in sex work transactions.
Patron as Client
Seduced by the painting’s beauty, the patron is transformed into the client figure from the myth of The Procuress, paying the latter to become the artwork’s beholder. Given that men purchased most of the images produced in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic, the patron figure will predominantly be referred to as “he”.[24] Identifying him as male completes the reenactment of the trope of The Procuress in the viewing experience of Vermeer’s Young Woman Seated at a Virginal, as the male patron embodies the young male client from Baburen’s The Procuress.
As aforementioned, the wall behind the seated woman in Vermeer’s painting creates a mirroring plane reflecting the figures from Baburen’s image behind her. Absent from the Woman Seated at a Virginal, the patron is positioned before the image, locking eyes with Vermeer’s woman. Looking at a domestic image provided the viewer with an intimate and arousing experience that echoes the sensual pleasure sought out by the client paying for a sex worker’s services.[25] This voyeuristic thrill of transgressing the intimate world of a domestic space asserted the male patron’s sense of ownership over the image, which he paid for, and, by extension, his own home.[26] Through the equation of client and male patron by their intent to sensually consume the feminine entity, the client figure from Baburen’s image becomes a masculine effigy that stands in as a supervisory power over the young woman playing the harpsichord.[27] By being visually absent from Vermeer’s painting, the conceptual representation of the male patron reifies the strict gender landscape of seventeenth-century Dutch society, where the woman was confined to the interior, within the image, and the male belonged to the outside world, beyond the image.[28]
Additionally, the transient nature of the upper-middle-class male patron, who travelled between Amsterdam and the colonies of the Dutch Republic, adds to the correlation between him and the client from the trope of The Procuress.[29] The absence of the patron’s depiction in Vermeer’s image echoes his presence at sea and further associates him with sailors, the primary clients of brothels.[30] The motif of the absent man, which was quite popular at the time, allows the dynamic of the trope of The Procuress to be perpetually repeated through time.[31] Indeed, by removing a visual representation of the male patron from the image, Vermeer transposes the role of the image consumer to whoever stands before it. Hanging in the National Gallery today, Young Woman Seated at a Virginal continues to be observed and enjoyed by contemporary museumgoers and will perpetually seduce new patron onlookers as long as it remains on display.
However, the patron and viewer of art cannot be strictly written off as male. Interestingly, Baburen’s The Procuress was purchased and owned by the art dealer Maria Thins, Vermeer’s mother-in-law.[32] Not only was art occasionally purchased by upper-middle-class women, but it was also enjoyed by all members who could visit one's home. This includes homeowners and their children, house staff, and various guests.[33] Still, men's economic power in seventeenth-century Dutch society supports identifying the patron/client as male, allowing them more agency in the art market, as previously mentioned.[34]
Conclusion
By including Baburen’s The Procuress in the composition of Vermeer’s Young Woman Seated at a Virginal, the dynamics involved in viewing Vermeer's painting change as they reproduce those from the trope depicted in Baburen’s work. Identified as a feminine entity, the painting itself becomes the sex worker, which is skillfully idealized by the artist, embodying the procuress, and sold as a consumable commodity. Then, the patron, who mirrors the client figure from the trope of the Procuress, willfully exchanges money to penetrate the painted perspective with his eyes. His absence from Vermeer’s composition posits the patron before the image and transposes his role in the viewing dynamic onto the viewer. This very absence of a signifier allows the interaction between image, artist and viewer to transcend time and anchors it in the here and now. Finally, Young Woman Seated at a Virginal and other high-life genre paintings bore witness to how the seventeenth-century's burgeoning capitalistic mindset permeated even the simple act of looking and transformed the pleasures of viewing into another form of monetary transaction.
Appendix
Figure 1: Johannes Vermeer, Lady Seated at a Virginal, 1970-72, National Gallery, London, 51.5x45.5cm
Figure 2: Johannes Vermeer, The Procuress, 1656 Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, 143x130cm
Figure 3: Dirck van Baburen, The Procuress, 1622, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 101.6x107.6cm
Figure 4: Johannes Vermeer, detail, Lady Seated at a Virginal, 1970-72, National Gallery, London
Footnotes
[1] Catherine Campbell, The French Procuress: Her Character in Renaissance Comedies (P. Lang, 1985), 9.
[2] Maria K. Kramer, “A Study of Paintings of Vermeer of Delft,” The Psychoanalytic Quarter 39 (1970): 400.
[3] C. Willemijn Fock, “Semblance or Reality? The Domestic Interior in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Genre Painting” in Art & Home: Dutch Interiors in the Age of Rembrandt, (Denver Art Museum; Newark Museum; Waanders Publishers, 2001), 101; Klaske Muizelaar and Derek L. Philipps, Picturing Men and Women in the Dutch Golden Age, (Yale University Press, 2003), 43.
[4] Mariët Westermann, “Costly and Curious, Full of pleasure and home contentment; Making Home in the Dutch Republic” in Art & Home: Dutch Interiors in the Age of Rembrandt, (Denver Art Museum; Newark Museum; Waanders Publishers, 2001), 56.
[5] Bryan Jay Wolf, Vermeer and the Invention of Seeing, (University of Chicago Press, 2001), 49.
[6] Muizelaar and Philipps, Picturing Men and Women, 133.
[7] Wayne Franits, “For people of fashion' Domestic imagery and the art market in the Dutch Republic,” Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art / Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek Online 51, no. 1 (2000): 301.
[8] Lotte van de Pol and Liz Waters, The Burgher and the Whore (Oxford University Press, 2011), 5.
[9] van de Pol and Waters, The Burgher and the Whore, 5.
[10] van de Pol and Waters, The Burgher and the Whore, 151.
[11] Lotte van de Pol, “The Whore, the Bawd and the Artist: The Reality and Imagery of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Prostitution,” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 2, no. 1-2 (2010): 2.
[12] Muizelaar and Philipps, Picturing Men and Women, 113.
[13] Muizelaar and Philipps, Picturing Men and Women, 113.
[14] Muizelaar and Philipps, Picturing Men and Women, 118.
[15] Fock, “Semblance or Reality?”, 84.
[16] Eric Jan Sluijter, Seductress of Sight: Studies in Dutch Art of the Golden Age, (Waanders, 2000), 9.
[17] van de Pol, “The Whore, the Bawd and the Artist”, 6.
[18] Muizelaar and Philipps, Picturing Men and Women, 4.
[19] Muizelaar and Philipps, Picturing Men and Women, 38.
[20] Westermann, “Costly and Curious,” 21.
[21] Westermann, “Costly and Curious,” 21.
[22] van de Pol, “The Whore, the Bawd and the Artist,” 6.
[23] van de Pol, “The Whore, the Bawd and the Artist,” 6.
[24] Richard Helgerson, “Soldiers and Enigmatic Girls: The Politics of Dutch Domestic Realism,” Representations, no. 58 (1997): 55.
[25] Muizelaar and Philipps, Picturing Men and Women, 4.
[26] Helgerson, “Soldiers and Enigmatic Girls,” 55.
[27] Bryan Jay Wolf, Vermeer and the Invention of Seeing, (University of Chicago Press, 2001), 41.
[28] Wolf, Vermeer and the Invention of Seeing, 41.
[29] van de Pol, “The Whore, the Bawd and the Artist,” 6.
[30] van de Pol and Waters, The Burgher and the Whore, 155.
[31] Wolf, Vermeer and the Invention of Seeing, 35.
[32] Muizelaar and Philipps, Picturing Men and Women, 134.
[33] Muizelaar and Philipps, Picturing Men and Women, 5.
[34] Muizelaar and Philipps, Picturing Men and Women, 137.