When this picture first came to light in the late nineteenth century it was not immediately associated with Vermeer. It was only when the painting was cleaned in 1901 that the signature was discovered and that scholars began to realise that another rare work could be added to the small total of Vermeer’s output. It is not surprising that Vermeer’s authorship was overlooked at first since the large, broadly painted religious subject seems far removed from the intimate domestic interiors that we normally associate with the artist. However, it is now recognised that this picture belongs to a small group of very early works which show the artist experimenting with various techniques and combining various influences in Dutch and Flemish art.

Around the time that he painted this picture, Vermeer married Catharina Bolnes, the youngest daughter of a wealthy Catholic in Delft, Maria Thins. This match would have required Vermeer’s conversion to Catholicism, and the young couple soon moved in with the bride’s mother. Given its large size, it is likely that Christ in the House of Martha and Mary was a specific commission, possibly intended for a clandestine Catholic church in Delft or for a Catholic patron, perhaps even Vermeer’s mother-in-law. The subject is taken from the New Testament (Luke 10: 38–42) and was a popular one in northern European art. Christ, travelling with his disciples, is welcomed into the house of Martha and her sister, Mary. As Martha rushes about with the household chores, she complains to Christ that he should instruct her sister to help, but instead he praises Mary for her willingness to listen. The hand of Christ, silhouetted against the white tablecloth, points towards Mary to conveythe underlying message that the spiritual is more important than the material world.

While in some respects this early painting might seem slightly awkward and even ungainly, there are passages that anticipate the mastery of Vermeer’s mature work. The play of light on different surfaces such as the loaf of bread or the different fabrics is very finely observed. The handling of tone, shape and colour also has something of the distilled quality that we associate with the artist. Even the statuesque figure of Martha, with her downcast eyes, seems like a precursor of the tranquil women who occupy Vermeer’s later interiors, caught in suspended animation as they perform the simplest of domestic tasks.

Nothing is known of the early ownership history of this work until the nineteenth century when it was in an English private collection, apparently described as a work by Raphael. After the discovery of the signature in 1901 it was sold by art dealers in London to William Allan Coats, a director of a thread manufacturing company in Paisley. Coats had amassed a distinguished collection of old masters and nineteenth-century art, much of it acquired through the famous Glasgow art dealer Alexander Reid. On his death in 1926, his sons Thomas H. and Major J. Coats sold the collection but the Vermeer was generously donated to the Scottish National Gallery in memory of their father.

This text was originally published in 100 Masterpieces: National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2015.