Johannes Vermeer’s The Guitar Player is one of the best known artworks at the Hampstead mansion – but could the Dutch master have made his own copy of it?
That’s the question asked by scholars as they studied a version of the painting at The Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Catalogued in the museum’s collection as a ‘Copy after Vermeer,’ it has been suggested that the painting could have been made by the artist himself, while others claim an unknown artist made a close copy of the original.
Now visitors to Kenwood will have the chance to compare the two images as they hang side by side in the dining room lobby.
The eagle-eyed will spot that the hairstyles of the women holding a guitar are different. The Philadelphia musician does not have corkscrew ringlets, but otherwise the pictures are almost identical.
They will also spot that the Kenwood painting is much better preserved, while the copy has suffered from overenthusiastic cleaning, which has removed the finishing layers of paint.
According to The National Gallery, which owns two Vermeers, there are only around 35 known artworks attributed to the artist, who died in 1675.
They include The Milkmaid, Girl With A Pearl Earring and Girl Reading A Letter. Paintings rarely come up for auction but the most recent, A Young Woman Seated at The Virginals, fetched £16.2 million in 2004.
Kenwood’s The Guitar Player was not part of the Rijksmuseum’s largest ever Vermeer exhibition two years ago because it is his only surviving painting which is unlined and in its original stretcher or timber frame – making it too fragile to travel.
Scientists and conservators have used advanced technologies to study the construction and materials of both paintings to glean clues about their authorship.
Kenwood’s free, unticketed exhibition will allow visitors to compare both works and draw their own conclusion as to whether they are by the same hand.
The Guitar Player double exhibition runs from September 1 until January 11, 2026 at Kenwood House, Hampstead.
