Johannes Vermeer Geocoin Artwork used for the design of the Johannes Vermeer Geocoin
Johannes Vermeer was a Dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. Although he was a moderately successful provincial genre painter in his lifetime, he was evidently was not wealthy.
Johannes Vermeer painted mostly domestic interior scenes. He worked slowly and with great care using frequently very expensive pigments. Almost all his paintings are apparently set in two smallish rooms in his house in Delft; they show the same furniture and decorations in various arrangements and they often portray the same people, mostly women.
He was recognized during his lifetime in Delft and The Hague, but his modest celebrity gave way to obscurity after his death. He was barely mentioned in Arnold Houbraken's major source book on 17th-century Dutch painting (Grand Theatre of Dutch Painters and Women Artists), and was thus omitted from subsequent surveys of Dutch art for nearly two centuries. In the 19th century, Vermeer was rediscovered by Gustav Friedrich Waagen and Théophile Thoré-Bürger, who published an essay attributing 66 pictures to him, although only 34 paintings are universally attributed to him today. Since that time, Vermeer's reputation has grown, and he is now acknowledged as one of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age.
Design
Together with another geocacher W.-J. Verbene designed and minted this geocion. The geocoin is basically based on the silver 25 ECU coin "Johannes Vermeer" minted 1996 in the Netherlands.
The front of the geocoin shows a 3D portret of Johannes Vermeer which was taken out of the painting "The Procuress". The Procuress is a 1656 oil-on-canvas painting by Johannes Vermeer and is one of only three paintings Vermeer signed and dated. It is shown to public in the "Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister" in Dresden, Germany. It is his first genre painting and shows a scene of contemporary life, an image of mercenary love perhaps in a brothel. The man on the left side of the painting wearing a black beret and a doublet with slashed sleeves was identified as a self portrait of the artist and was used for the front of the geocoin. At the bottom of the geocoin the name and birth/death year (1632-1675) of Johannes Vermeer is framed. To the upper left of the geocoin the words "Vitam Augeat Pictura" are printed.
The back of the geocoin shows the 3D portret of "the Dutch Mona Lisa". The portret is based on the painting: Meisje met de parel (Girl with the pearl earring). It was oil painted between 1665-1667 by the 17th-century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. It is a tronie of a girl with a headscarf and a pearl earring. The painting is in the collection of the Mauritshuis in The Hague (The Netherlands) since 1902.
FInishings:
It totally 6 different finishings of the Johannes Vermeer Geocoin were minted:
- Antique Bronze red RE
- Antique Silver blue RE
- Antique Bronze - LE (50 made)
- Antique Silver - LE (50 made)
- Antique Copper - XLE (30 made)
- Antique Nickel/Polished Gold blue XLE (30 made)