Fig. r68. Johannes Vermeer, The Music Lesson (A Woman at the Viwinal with a Gentleman), ca. 1662-63. Oil on canvas, 29Ys x 25 Ys in. (74 x 64.5 em). Royal Collection, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, London

(see fig. 138), Hendrick van Vliet (see cat. no. 84), and Coesermans woman appears in profile, looking slightly downward, rather as the (see cat. no. 13). A dating of Vermeer's canvas to about 1662-63 is figure in The Letter Reader (fig. 163) appears to the viewer. In each also suggested by its comparatively light and local coloring and by picture a reflection tempts one further, to succumb to the exquisite, the textured treatment of passages such as the highlighted edge frustrating pleasures of sight. of the table-carpet. Like other paintings by Vermeer, not least those owned by Van The queue of forms on the right, extending from the table to the Ruijven (as this one apparently was), The Music Lesson plays with the chair and viol, the woman, the virginal, and the forms reflected in notion of voyeurism: art (mirror of nature) and sight itself seduce the mirror, may be compared with the sequence of figures, four alto­ the artist, the lover, the viewer, the connoisseur. ns The glimpse of an 9 gether, in Young Woman with a Wineglass (fig. 167). In both pictures, easel in the mirror reveals that the whole image is an artifice, u a white pitcher draws attention to secondary figures: in the latter a depicting what we desire but cannot embrace, like the woman's dozing man, who indicates that idleness leads to temptation; and, in reflection. As has often been observed, Vermeer sets up tables and The Music Lesson a painting ofRoman Charity, where Cimon's bound other barriers in the foregrounds of his early works to hold the arms and dependence upon Pero suggest the gentleman caller's cap­ viewer at a distance. Here perspective performs the same function, as tivity. He is bound by bars of music, which he evidently sings as well it does in Maes's paintings of eavesdroppers spying on lovers. 120 as hears, and by beauty and desire. From his point of view the young (Perspective and lovers are also implied in Bramer's drawing with a

160 VERMEER AND THE DELFT SCHOOL