28 findings were published at almost the same time by Annaliese Mayer-Meintschel of Dresden and Arthur Wheelock of Washington.4 Both could only explain the presence of the background picture and the roemer by suggesting that these belonged to an earlier painting stage, and by attributing the green curtain, which partially covers these details, to a later stage of execution. At the same time, Mayer- Meintschel offered an explanation for these findings by summarising: “Vermeer then overpainted both attributes, the Cupid and the roemer.” 5 As a common trope, these exciting discoveries subsequently found their way into the literature on Vermeer and were more widely publicised than, for example, the knowledge of a hidden map in the picture Woman with a Pearl Necklace in Berlin.6 Investigations into the Girl Reading a Letter that followed, such as that by Marlies Giebe and Uta Neidhardt in 19947 and by the present author in 2009/108 accepted the customary interpretation and raised no questions as to the originality of one quarter of the painting’s surface. Over the centuries, people had become so familiar with the then-visible composition of Dresden’s Girl Reading a Letter that no pictorial analysis, no matter how thorough, could possibly find fault with it. Restoration Besides the analyses, a complex conservation of the painting had long been on the agenda of the conservation studio responsible for the collection. In 2003 the painting was loaned to Madrid for a special exhibition. In preparation for the transport (as would again be the case two years later for a second loan, to Japan), it was necessary to consolidate and secure small areas of the paint layer and to reinforce the bonding between the original canvas and the lining canvas along the margins. A meeting of five experts, invited to Dresden in March 2017, marked the beginning of the restoration process and thus the start of a fascinating metamorphosis of Vermeer’s work.9 That initial meeting of the expert committee focused on discussing the state of preservation of the Girl Reading a Letter and a plan for its conservation-restoration.10 These evaluations were based on preceding assessments and a study of its known conservation history.11 In addition, it was possible to draw on the paint analyses by Herman Kühn,12 the X-ray image, the infrared reflectography of 2009/10,13 the microscopic analyses, and a special analysis of the canvas weave.14 The meeting ended with the committee voicing unanimous approval of a comprehensive conservation, and thus essentially supporting the decision made for this undertaking by the gallery’s management (fig. 5). Aside from the extensive photographic documentation that had already begun,15 the first work undertaken in the conservation studio consisted of removing the varnish – a layer of natural resin, which may have derived from the conservation treatment undertaken in 1838 and which had been regenerated several times during the subsequent 170 years (fig. 4). For this we employed cotton swabs soaked in organic solvents, applied in a rolling motion over the surface, with which we were able to take up the dissolved varnish particles. The cleaning began on the left-hand edge of the Girl Reading a Letter and continued, strip by strip, to the right (figs. 6–8). Fig. 4 Detail with decomposed varnish, condition in 2009 Fig. 5 Meeting of the expert commission, May 6, 2019
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