The Art of Painting

The Art of Painting (Die Malkunst), also known as The Allegory of Painting, is an oil on canvas, 120 × 100 cm, by Johannes Vermeer, painted around 1666–1668; it is in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (GG 9128).

After Christ in the House of Martha and Mary and The Procuress it is Vermeer's largest painting, and its composition and symbolism make it his most complex. It is signed 'I Ver-Meer' on the lower border of the map but not dated. Vermeer kept it all his life, even when in debt. After his death his widow Catharina Bolnes handed it to her mother, Maria Thins, in 1676 to keep it from creditors, a transfer the estate's executor, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, disputed.

A painter seen from behind, in a slashed black doublet, short breeches and orange stockings, is starting the model's laurel wreath on his canvas. The model, eyes lowered, wears blue and holds a trumpet and a book; the Kunsthistorisches Museum identifies her as Clio, Muse of History, following Cesare Ripa's Iconologia, who proclaims the fame of Netherlandish painting. A plaster mask and a sketchbook on the table allude to the unity of the arts. On the wall hangs a large map of the Seventeen Provinces published by Claes Janszoon Visscher in 1636, framed by 20 city views. It shows the Netherlands before the north–south split, and a crease across it has been read as the political division, though Walter Liedtke found such readings unconvincing. A heavy curtain and a chair draw the viewer in; the marble floor and the gilt chandelier show Vermeer's command of perspective and light.

Until 1860 the picture passed as the work of Pieter de Hooch, whose signature was even forged on it. Count Rudolf Czernin bought it in 1813 for 50 florins, and it hung in the Czernin gallery in Vienna. In 1940 Hitler bought it for 1.82 million Reichsmarks for his planned museum in Linz. It was recovered from the Altaussee salt mine in 1945, handed to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in 1946 and taken into its collection in 1958; the Czernin heirs' restitution claims have been rejected.