A Tronie

A lost tronie, or head study, once owned by the sculptor Jean Larson and recorded in the inventory of his goods drawn up in The Hague on 4 August 1664. It is the earliest dated reference to any Vermeer painting in the seventeenth-century records, and the picture itself has not been traced since.

A “principal by Van der Meer”

The inventory lists the work simply as “een tronie van Vermeer,” a head by Vermeer, and values it at ten guilders. The estate document describes it as “a principal by Van der Meer,” wording that stressed it was an autograph original by the Delft master rather than a copy. The modest price suggests a small-scale work.

The sculptor Jean Larson

Larson was a sculptor of English origin who worked between The Hague and London. He appears to have acquired the painting as early as 1660, perhaps from Vermeer himself; John Michael Montias suggested he may have bought it directly from the painter during a business trip to Delft.

Not one of the surviving tronies

A tronie was not a portrait of a particular sitter but a character study, a head and shoulders often dressed in colorful or richly textured clothing. Because the picture was already in Larson’s hands by 1664, it is unlikely to be any of the surviving examples such as Girl with a Pearl Earring, the Study of a Young Woman, Girl with a Red Hat, or Girl with a Flute, all of which appear to have been painted later.