For a long time, women as collectors and lovers of art were largely overlooked in art history. This is particularly evident in the case of Jahannes Vermeer, whose success was traditionally attributed to the support of the wealthy Delft citizen Pieter van Ruijven. Yet archival material and recent research prove a different picture: His wife Maria de Knuijt was most likely the main patron of Vermeer.
The essay “Women’s Vermeers – Maria de Knuijt and new archival documentation on Vermeer’s Primary Patron” written by Piet Bakker and Judith Noorman on the role of the female art patron Maria de Knuijt is part of the project “The Female Impact: Women, the Art Market and Household Consumption in the Dutch Republic, 1580–1720”, which aims to understand the art market not as a sphere of artists and male patrons but as a part of a household consumption shaped significantly by women.
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