Art: A Rare Twosome

Gifts are fairly showering this week on Washington, D.C. Up on the walls of the National Gallery are two new Old Masters. Both are from the Low Countries: a rare Vermeer and an early 15th century Flemish miniature (see opposite page). Both have touches of mystery in their past. After nearly 400 years both are only now reaching the province of the public eye.

There are only about 40 works in the world solidly attributed to Vermeer, fewer than half a dozen outside of museums. Highly esteemed while he lived, the 17th century master of Delft was forgotten from his death until the 19th century, only to be rediscovered by the likes of J. Pierpont Morgan, who bought A Lady Writing in 1907. Vermeer, who usually showed his women in profile or looking away, made this lady all the more appealing by turning her full face to the viewer.

"It has all the subtle magic of Vermeer's art," exclaims Director John Walker, "the marvelous luminous effects, the soft texture of flesh and materials, the sense of suspended action and above all the tranquillity." One expert estimates that the Vermeer would have fetched $3 million on the auction block, but it will cost the National nothing. The gift of Harry Waldron Havemeyer and Horace Havemeyer Jr. in memory of their father, the late Horace Havemeyer of the sugar-refining family, it will become the gallery's property upon the death of his widow.

St. George and the Dragon, bought with funds from Ailsa Mellon Bruce, is even rarer and richer, considering its size. So small is the postcard-shaped (5⅜ in. by 4⅛ in.) oil that the gallery has built a magnifying glass in the showcase; so costly is it that the work was auctioned last March for $26,552 per sq. in. At the sale, it was called a Hubert van Eyck, but the National's curators now attribute it to Rogier van der Weyden. They suspect that St. George is one part of a diptych whose matching half, which also bears the seal of Prussia's former ruler Frederick the Great on the back, is owned by Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza in Switzerland.