40 (Washington DC, National Gallery of Art), whose background similarly features the abstracted designs of a tapestry (fig. 3).5 Pentimenti and Later Revisions When studying alterations in the appearance of a painting, we must always remember that the artist him or herself may have made compositional changes during the work’s execution, as was the case with the Mistress and Maid mentioned above. Here, the artist not only changed his mind about the background, deciding in the end against the tapestry and instead for a curtain painted in richly contrasting tones representing light and shadows, so that it was much more noticeable than it appears today. Further, we have since learned that the now-blue tablecloth was originally green as well, although lighter and richer in colour.6 Thanks to early use of X-radiography, many of the changes in Vermeer’s body of work have long been documented, such as the presence of a man in a hat, accompanied by a Fig. 3 Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Red Hat, c. 1665/66, oil on panel, 22.8 × 18 cm, Washington DC, National Gallery of Art, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, Inv. no. 1937.1.53 Fig. 4 Johannes Vermeer, A Maid Asleep, c. 1656/57, oil on canvas, 87.6 × 76.5 cm, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Benjamin Altmann 1913, Inv. no. 14.40.611 Fig. 5 Johannes Vermeer, A Maid Asleep, X-radiograph
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