User:Johannes der Taucher/Jacob Vrel

Jacob Vrel (fl. (c.1630–c.1680) was a Dutch, Flemish, or Westphalian painter of interiors and urban street scenes during the Dutch Golden Age (1588–1672). He was active from 1654 to 1662.

Biography
Jacob Vrel is also referred to as Jan instead of Jacob(us); alternative spellings of his surname are Frel, Frelle, Vreele, Vrelle, and Vriel. Though Vrel's birthplace is unknown, scholars consider him a Dutch artist.

The lack of biographical information and challenging visual evidence has led scholars like Elizabeth Honig to call him "the most entirely elusive painter of 17th century Holland."

Despite the many architectural elements, bread products or clothing of the figures in his paintings, art historians are unable to assign most of Vrel's street scenes to any particular city or region. Vrel is thought to have composed them mostly from imagination. As of 2021, two experts have recognized streets and buildings of the Dutch city of Zwolle, not far from the German border in three pictures.

Style
According to the Netherlands Institute for Art History (Dutch RKD-Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis), Vrel was a member of the same "school" or artistic style as Pieter de Hooch, showing simple intimate scenes of daily life in towns, often including studies in perspective. Though no evidence for a specific "school" exists, the center of influence seems to have been in the artistic centers of Haarlem and Delft, for artists born during the years 1620–1630. The painters listed by the RKD in this category are Esaias Boursse, Hendrick van der Burgh, Pieter de Hooch, Pieter Janssens Elinga, Cornelis de Man, Hendrick ten Oever, and Jacob Vrel.

Vrel's works are sometimes confused with those by Esaias Boursse or Pieter de Hooch. Vrel painted without glazes. Vrel often painted his signature on a strip of paper or cloth in his painting, reminiscent of medieval banners or scrolls. At least half of the pictures by Vrel contain signatures altered to read "Johannes Vermeer" or "Pieter de Hooch."

Work
Ranges from thirty-eight to forty paintings had been attributed to Vrel before the 2021 catalogue raisonne, which names forty-nine. The following public collections hold Vrel´s work in their permanent collections:
 * Alte Pinakothek, Munich: Street Scene with Figures in Conversation
 * Ashmolean Museum, Oxford: The Little Nurse
 * Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit: Interior
 * Groninger Museum, Groningen: Interior with a Man by a Fireplace
 * Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg: Street Scene
 * Heylshof Museum, Worms: Two Cottage Women Conversing
 * Kunstthalle Hamburg: Street Corner
 * Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna: Woman at a Window, 1654.
 * Museum de Fundatie, Zwolle: Interior with a Busy Woman, 1650.
 * National Gallery of Art, Washington: Young Woman in an Interior, ca. 1660.
 * Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille: The Weaver's Workshop
 * Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia: Street Scene, mid-17th century
 * Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: Alleyway in a Dutch Town; Woman in Front of a Stove
 * Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp: The Little Sick Nurse
 * Royal Museums of Fine Arts, Brussels: Interior with a Woman and a Child
 * San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego: The Little Sick Nurse
 * Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid: Interior with Woman Seated by a Hearth
 * Wallraf–Richartz Museum, Cologne: Interior with an Old Woman

A retrospective exhibition curated by Berndt Ebert of the Alte Pinakothek had been set to open in late 2020, accompanied by a combined printed exhibition catalog and catalogue raisonné by Ebert, Cécile Tainturier and Quentin Buvelot.in 2021. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the exhibition on Vrel was rescheduled to be shown in 2023 at the Mauritshuis in The Hague, and then at the Fondation Custodia in Paris.