A Girl Asleep (Vermeer) - Provenance and Exhibitions

Provenance and Exhibitions

The painting was among the large collection of Vermeer works sold on May 16, 1696 from the estate of Jacob Dissius (1653–1695). It is widely believed the collection was originally owned by Dissius' father-in-law, Pieter Claesz van Ruijven of Delft as Vermeer's major patron, then passed down to Ruijven's daughter (1655–1682), who would have left it to Dissius. The work's history from that point is unknown until its ownership by John Waterloo Wilson in Paris after 1873. It was sold on March 14, 1881 in Paris, when the Sedelmeyer Gallery in Paris bought it and sold it later that year to Rodolphe Kann, also of Paris. Kann owned the work until 1907. It was sold in 1908 through the Duveen Brothers of London to Benjamin Altman, and it was exhibited in New York in 1909. Altman owned the work until 1913, when it passed into the hands of the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a bequest.