The Lacemaker

The Lacemaker, an iconic work by Johannes Vermeer

Together with The Milkmaid and The Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Lacemaker is one of the artist’s best-known masterpieces.

A late work by Johannes Vermeer, this small oil on canvas depicts a fashionable subject in Delft in around 1660–70, that of the lacemaker, a comfortably off young woman busy with an everyday task in an interior. Possibly aided by the use of a camera obscura, an optical instrument that helps to capture a subject, he created an image centred on the model, introduced by a succession of planes, in which the composition is enhanced by light effects: the painter plays on the effects of selective precision to define certain details while leaving certain areas more blurry. Thus the colour threads emerging from the sewing cushion (naaikussen) are treated in such a way that they have a surprising appearance, akin to melted wax. The predominantly blueish hues of the foreground highlight the young woman, who is treated in warm tones, set against the grey neutral background of the bare wall. The furniture and accessories are not anecdotal details but veritable subjects. The gaze has to climb over them as if they were obstacles to reach the lacemaker, in order to enter her private world. Detached from the flat tint, these different planes have their own intrinsic pictorial interest.

A unique treatment of the subject: the mise en abyme of the viewer

The Lacemaker is one of Vermeer’s smallest paintings, which enabled the painter to draw on all his virtuosic skills. Of all his works, it is the one in which the effect of concentration is most intense. The decision to frame the subject very tightly – more so even than in The Milkmaid – while reducing the size of the canvas, leads the viewer in turn to concentrate, adopting a posture identical to that of the subject, in a unique effect of mise en abyme. The Lacemaker is one of Vermeer’s most impenetrable works. It embodies the mystery and complexity that surround the works of this artist, a painter of silence and tranquillity, in which the simplest gestures are imbued with great poetry.

The loan of an exceptional work in the heart of the Gallery of Time

The Musée du Louvre-Lens has been in existence for ten years, during which time it has been visited by five million people. This anniversary is being marked by a year of celebrations, and also by a bold gesture on the part of the Musée du Louvre, reflecting its desire to share exceptional works with visitors to the Louvre-Lens.

The Lacemaker will be displayed in the Gallery of Time, the museum’s iconic space, embodiment of the aim to create a Louvre with a difference, strongly committed to making art and culture accessible to all. It will enhance the gallery’s unique presentation and will be on display for all visitors to see during this exceptional voyage through the history of art and humankind.

This loan makes it possible, once again, to celebrate the remarkable venture that is the Musée du Louvre-Lens, a vital element in the transformation of the region, made possible thanks to the ongoing mobilisation of the local authorities: the Région Hauts-de-France, the Département du Pas-de-Calais and the Communauté d’Agglomération de Lens-Liévin.