![Johannes Vermeer, Dutch (active Delft, 1632 – 1675), ‘The Guitar Player (Lady with a Guitar),’ around 1670–1720. Oil on canvas, Philadelphia Museum of Art, John G. Johnson collection, 1917, cat. 497. Courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art](https://www.liveauctioneers.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/1920_vermeerheader-presspage.jpg)
Johannes Vermeer, Dutch (active Delft, 1632 – 1675), ‘The Guitar Player (Lady with a Guitar),’ around 1670–1720. Oil on canvas, Philadelphia Museum of Art, John G. Johnson collection, 1917, cat. 497. Courtesy Philadelphia Museum of Art
PHILADELPHIA – Throughout the 20th century and to the present day, the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Lady with a Guitar has been the subject of deep fascination and many questions. Long cataloged as a ‘Copy after Vermeer’ in the John G. Johnson collection at the museum, the work is a replica or close duplicate of Johannes Vermeer’s The Guitar Player (circa 1672), today in the collection of Kenwood House, London. The hairstyles of the sitter are different – the Philadelphia musician does not have corkscrew ringlets – but otherwise the images are nearly identical.