Saint Praxedis

The attribution to Vermeer was first advanced in the 1980s by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and the Vermeer scholar John Michael Montias, who pointed to the double signature—“Meer 1655” alongside “VaMeer”—and to technical features consistent with Vermeer’s other early works. Albert Blankert, whose catalogue raisonné is among the most rigorous in Vermeer scholarship, remained initially skeptical, questioning whether the signatures were original to the picture.

The attribution gained wider acceptance through the 1990s and 2000s, and Christie’s presented the picture as an autograph Vermeer when it sold in 2014; it has since hung at the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo on long-term loan. Most specialists now accept the picture as Vermeer’s earliest surviving work, while a minority continues to regard it as a copy after Ficherelli by an unknown Dutch painter.