"If the underpainting is indeed by Vermeer, it would be his only known male portrait-and would throw fresh light on his early career. Based on the man's costume (particularly his broad-brimmed hat and collar with a tasselled tie), the composition can be dated to 1650-55. Vermeer's earliest known picture is Christ in the House of Mary and Martha (1654-55, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh), but he might have painted portraits before his religious subjects of the mid 1650s."
"Equally intriguing is the suggestion that the hidden portrait behind Girl with the Red Hat could be a work by his fellow Delft artist Carel Fabritius, now best known for The Goldfinch (1654, Mauritshuis, The Hague). A 1676 inventory compiled after Vermeer's death shows that he had then owned two male heads by Fabritius; he could also have had other panels which he reused. Only about a dozen paintings by Fabritius are known,"
The panel of Girl with the Red Hat was discovered to be painted over an earlier portrait of a man. Earlier research judged the underlying male figure not to be Vermeer due to loose brushwork. New imaging shows Vermeer's underpainting stage was generally looser and executed quickly, leading NGA specialists to consider that the hidden portrait could be by Vermeer, though this remains unproven. The costume dates the composition to about 1650-55, which would place it before or alongside Vermeer's earliest known works and suggest unidentified early portraits might survive.
Read at The Art Newspaper - International art news and events
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