The allegory of the faith by Johannes Vermeer

This monumental and highly symbolic work represents one of the few pure allegories created by the Delft master. The painter Vermeer Jan stages the foundations of religious belief in this complex composition entitled “The allegory of the faith” characteristic of the baroque period. Through a profusion of iconographic objects, the artist expresses spiritual devotion and the triumph of spirituality in a refined domestic setting that strikes the imagination with its assumed theatricality.

A woman dressed in a sumptuous white and blue satin gown sits in a richly decorated interior, her hand placed on her chest and her eyes raised toward heaven in an attitude of ecstasy. Her right foot rests on a terrestrial globe, symbolizing her dominion over the temporal world. On the table next to her are arranged a wooden crucifix, an open Bible, and a golden chalice. On the floor in the foreground, a snake is crushed by a heavy stone near a bitten red apple. A large historical tapestry serves as a curtain on the left, while a painting of the Crucifixion adorns the back wall.

The prodigious craftsmanship of Vermeer Jan is manifested in the exceptional rendering of materials and the shimmering reflections of the gown’s satin. His oil painting technique makes it possible to unify these numerous religious symbols in a coherent light of great plastic beauty.