Saint Praxedis. Saint Praxedis is an oil painting attributed to Johannes Vermeer.
This attribution has often been questioned. However, in 2014 the auction house Christie's announced the results of new investigations which in their opinion demonstrate conclusively that it is a Vermeer.
The painting is a copy of a work by Felice Ficherelli, and depicts the early Roman martyr, Saint Praxedis or Praxedes. It may be Vermeer's earliest surviving work, dating from 1655.
The painting shows the saint squeezing a martyr's blood from a sponge into an ornate vessel. It is closely related to a work by Ficherelli from 1640-45, now in the Collection Fergnani in Ferrara, and is generally assumed to be a copy of it. The most obvious difference between the two is that there is no crucifix in the Ferrara work.
It is Vermeer's only known close copy of another work. This is one of only four dated Vermeer paintings, the others being The Procuress, The Astronomer and The Geographer. Vermeer's two early history paintings, Christ in the House of Martha and Mary and Diana and Her Companions, are dated by almost all art historians to 1654-6, although opinions differ as to which is earlier. The painting's provenance before the mid-twentieth century is unknown. The collector Jacob Reder bought it at a minor auction house in New York in 1943. It first received significant attention as a possible Vermeer when being shown as
This attribution has often been questioned. However, in 2014 the auction house Christie's announced the results of new investigations which in their opinion demonstrate conclusively that it is a Vermeer.
The painting is a copy of a work by Felice Ficherelli, and depicts the early Roman martyr, Saint Praxedis or Praxedes. It may be Vermeer's earliest surviving work, dating from 1655.
The painting shows the saint squeezing a martyr's blood from a sponge into an ornate vessel. It is closely related to a work by Ficherelli from 1640-45, now in the Collection Fergnani in Ferrara, and is generally assumed to be a copy of it. The most obvious difference between the two is that there is no crucifix in the Ferrara work.
It is Vermeer's only known close copy of another work. This is one of only four dated Vermeer paintings, the others being The Procuress, The Astronomer and The Geographer. Vermeer's two early history paintings, Christ in the House of Martha and Mary and Diana and Her Companions, are dated by almost all art historians to 1654-6, although opinions differ as to which is earlier. The painting's provenance before the mid-twentieth century is unknown. The collector Jacob Reder bought it at a minor auction house in New York in 1943. It first received significant attention as a possible Vermeer when being shown as
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