In his book Vermeer’s Family Secrets, originally published by Routledge in 2009, Cooper Union art history professor Benjamin Binstock proposed that several “problem paintings” in the Vermeer canon as currently understood, including four of them here in New York and two others at the National Gallery in Washington, might actually have been painted by his daughter, Maria, who he further identified as the model for the famous Girl with a Pearl Earring.

Thus far, however, Binstock’s thesis has been met with thunderous silence in the art historical press—itself a fascinating response.  But what if we were to take Binstock’s claims seriously, or at least allow them a fair hearing?  (How might we go about doing so?)  Beyond that, what if we in turn were to think about how such theories make their way through the art historical vetting process?  How generally does scholarship evaluate such claims, and in turn how ought we evaluate how it does so?  And how would our response to certain specific works (such as the National Gallery’s Girl with a Red Hat, which Binstock recasts as a self-portrait) change if Binstock were proven right?

By way of addressing such questions, the NYIH and its partner, the Humanities Initiative at NYU, will be convening an all-day symposium (a sort of book-end to the similar sort of conference convened twelve years ago to evaluate David Hockney’s controversial claim that Old Masters had been deploying optical devices in ways far more widespread than previously believed).  Following a presentation of his theory by Professor Binstock himself, its contentions and implications will in turn be evaluated, sequentially, by panels of art historians and theorists; artists; and more generalized scholars; culminating in a concluding overview by the eminent Princeton cultural and intellectual historian Anthony Grafton.

Other participants will include art historians and theorists Linda Nochlin of the Institute for Fine Arts, Claudia Swan of Northwestern University, Ivan Gaskell of the Bard Graduate Center, and James Elkins of the School of the Art Institute in Chicago;artists Chuck Close, Vincent Desiderio, Gerri Davis and April Gornik; andgeneralists Rachel Cohen (author of A Chance Meeting and a forthcoming biography of Bernard Berenson), NYU Rilke scholar Ulrich Baer, philosopher of aestheticsJonathan Gilmore (currently visiting at Columbia), and NYU neural scientist David Poeppel.

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE

11 am - 1:00 pm   Presentation of a theory 
                                  Benjamin Binstock in conversation with Lawrence Weschler
                             
1:00 - 1:30 pm      Lunch Break

1:30 - 2:45 pm      Art historians & theorists respond
                                  Linda Nochlin, Claudia Swan, Ivan Gaskel, James Elkins

3:00 - 4:15 pm      Artists respond
                                  Chuck Close, Vincent Desiderio, Gerri Davis, April Gornik

4:30 - 5:30 pm      Generalists respond
                                  Rachel Cohen, Uli Baer, Jonathan Gilmore, David Poeppel

5:30 - 6:00 pm      Concluding remarks
                                  Anthony Grafton
 

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