Dirck van Baburen

The Procuress

The subject of this work, The Procuress, was popular in Utrecht in the 1620s. Van Baburen painted another version which was likely owned by Maria Thins, the mother-in-law of Johannes Vermeer. That version is today in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Vermeer incorporated the MFA picture (or, possibly, a copy after it) into the background of two of his own paintings: The Concert, about 1665-66 (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston) and A Lady Seated at the Virginals, about 1673-75 (National Gallery, London).