The Allegory of Faith

The painting depicts a woman in a fine white and blue satin dress with gold trimmings. She sits on a platform a step higher than the black and white marble floor, her right foot on a terrestrial globe and her right hand on her heart as she looks up, adoringly, at a glass sphere hung from the ceiling by a blue ribbon. Her left arm rests on the edge of a table which holds a golden chalice, a large book, and a dark-wood crucifix. Behind the crucifix is a gilt-leather panel screen. Beneath the book is a long piece of cloth, possibly a priest's stole. Resting on top of the book is a crown of thorns. All of these items are on the platform, which is covered by a green and yellow rug, the edge of which is on the floor. At the bottom of the picture, nearer the viewer, is an apple, and nearer still a snake which has been squashed by a cornerstone. On the dim, far wall behind the woman, a large painting of Christ's crucifixion is hung. To the viewer's left is a multicolored tapestry, pulled back at the bottom and seemingly the closest thing in the painting to the viewer. A chair with a blue cloth on it is immediately beneath and behind the tapestry and to the left of the snake and cornerstone. ==Iconography==

'' From Cesare Ripa's Iconologia Vermeer's iconography in the painting is largely taken from Cesare Ripa's Iconologia, an emblem book (a collection of allegorical illustrations with accompanying morals or poems on a moral theme) which had been translated into Dutch in 1644 by D. P. Pers. The artist used various symbols that Ripa described and illustrated in his book, along with symbols taken from other books and traditions. Two of the four allegorical figures of Faith ("Fede. Geloof" and "Fede Catholica. Catholijck of algemeen Geloof") given in Ripa's book provide many of the symbols in the painting, including the color of the woman's clothing, her hand gesture, and the presence of the crushed snake and the apple. Selena Cant has written that the sphere is "symbol of the human mind and its capacity both to reflect and to contain infinity." ==Reception==

Many art historians have considered the painting one of Vermeer's less successful works. Cant, for instance, calls it "harder, more brittle, less convincing. Faith herself appears uncomfortable: finely dressed, she appears too worldly to be a spiritual symbol, too solid to appear transported, the intimacy too forced and her expression too artificial." According to Wheelock, "[T]he iconographic demands of this subject strained the credibility of his realistic approach. While essential for the painting's symbolic content, the ecstatic pose of the woman and the crushed snake seem incongruous within this Dutch setting." Walter Liedtke objected to Wheelock's point by asserting that the artist took a very realistic approach primarily in depicting the terrestrial globe and reflections in the glass sphere. Instead, according to Liedtke, the painting is best compared to contemporary Dutch paintings illustrating abstract concepts, including Adriaen Hanneman's Allegory of the Peace (1664; still in situ at the Eerste Kamer in the Binnenhof), a histrionic picture showing how reticent Vermeer was in this work; and Karel Dujardin's Allegory of the Immortal Fame of Art Vanquishing Time and Envy (1675; Historisches Museum, Bamberg); Gabriel Metsu's The Triumph of Justice (late 1650s; Mauritshuis, The Hague); Adriaen van de Velde's The Annunciation (1667; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)as well as works by Van Honthorst and early works of De Lairesse. ==Provenance==

Vermeer's imaginative use of symbolism in the painting indicates to Wheelock that the painter was not given specific instructions on the allegory but chose the various items himself. The original owner is unknown but may have been a Catholic in Delft, possibly the Jesuits in the city. In 1899 it was put up for sale by a dealer, Wächtler, in Berlin. That year Abraham Bredius bought it for about DM 700. A Dutch newspaper at the time praised Bredius for the purchase: "With this acquisition of the new Delft Vermeer, the New Testament, as an Eglon van der Neer, Dr. Bredius has once again found a bargain with his perspicacious eye." Bredius then loaned the work to the Mauritshuis, where it remained for the next 24 years, until 1923 when Bredius gave it to the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam for a long-term loan. Bredius disliked the work, calling it (in 1907) "a large but unpleasant Vermeer". In 1928, he sold it through the dealer Kleinberger to Michael Friedsam in New York, who bequeathed it in 1931 as part of the Friedsam Collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it has remained. ==Exhibitions==

The painting has been loaned by The Met to a number of exhibitions that included multiple Vermeers being brought together from different museums. Amongst these were: • "Vermeer. Il secolo d'oro dell'arte olandese" at le Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome, which opened on September 27, 2012 and ran through January 20, 2013 • "Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, which opened on October 30, 2014 and ran through February 15, 2015 • "Vermeer et les maîtres de la peinture de genre" at the Louvre in Paris, which opened on February 22, 2017 and ran through May 22, 2017 (painting was not listed in exhibit catalogue) ==See also==