Interior Scenes and Interior Lives

Young Woman with a Water Pitcher (ca. 1662)

Young Woman with a Lute (ca. 1662-63)

Both Young Woman with a Water Pitcher (1662) and Young Woman with a Lute (1662-3) display Vermeer’s interest in illustrating the private lives of his female subjects.

In the Water Pitcher, a young woman prepares for the day, washing up with water from a gilt-silver pitcher as she looks out the stained-glass window on the right. By painting this woman as she is getting ready for the day, Vermeer provides an intimate view into her private life.

A similarly intimate view is provided by the Young Woman with a Lute. In this piece, a woman sits practicing and tuning her lute as she stares out the window. Several pages of sheet music in front of her as well as a large viola da gamba beneath the table suggest that she is preparing for a recital. As with the Water Pitcher, in the Lute Vermeer creates an intimate painting of the young woman as she practices alone in the near dark of the room, an excited smile on her face as she stares out the amber colored window.

Signs in both paintings indicate that the women are of the wealthier class, including the expensive linen coverings worn by the Young Woman with Water Pitcher, as well as the fact that playing an instrument like a lute was an opportunity available mainly for the wealthy, who would generally study music as part of their education. In both paintings, maps of the Dutch Republic and the European continent adorn the walls. Based on real maps which Vermeer likely owned, these maps convey the nationalistic pride in both the Netherlands’s naval skill and detailed cartography that was common in well-to-do homes of the time. Both Young Woman with a Water Pitcher and Young Woman with a Lute provide intimate portraits of their subjects, two wealthy young women preparing for their day.