The Proposition, Jana said. As it’s usually called. It’s a beautiful piece. Leyster was a singular case—she was one of the first women in the Guild, and she achieved some renown during her lifetime. But after her death many of her paintings were misattributed, it was only at the end of the nineteenth century that the error was corrected. And then? I asked. Jana shrugged. Well, her paintings are here. I suppose she has some reputation, though it’s still less than she deserves. I nodded, I saw that Eline was also examining the painting. Are you done? I asked Jana, and she shook her head, No, I need to go back. But you’re staying for the dinner? I nodded, Jana was already retreating, I saw that she had wanted to introduce Eline to me in part so that we would each have the other to speak to.
Jana has a gift for friendship, Eline said. She insists upon it. We both laughed. Her words were gentle but forthright and there was an immediate ease between us. In the brief pause that followed, I realized that Jana had left without establishing any common ground between us, I knew nothing about the woman who stood beside me. As we began walking, Eline indicated the paintings in the gallery. They have such an air of perfect tranquility, but it was not a period without upheaval. The Dutch Empire was rapidly expanding, in many ways these paintings have to be read in that context. The relentless domesticity of these quiet interiors takes on a different meaning seen in that light, she said. It means something, to face inward, to turn your back on the storm brewing outside.
I said that she seemed to know a great deal about the period, and she smiled. I’m an art historian, I teach at the university. It’s surprising that I didn’t meet Jana earlier, The Hague is such a small place and its art world even smaller, but I suppose she hasn’t been here so long. I was of course aware of her appointment, she added. As we continued through the galleries, slowly returning to Jana’s exhibition, I asked her what she thought of the show. She’s done an excellent job, Eline said. Of the exhibition and of the position as a whole. It’s not an easy thing, what she’s being asked to do. She needs to modernize the institution, but she also needs to keep us art historians satisfied. I asked if that was how they met and she said, No, we met in another way altogether, it was quite unexpected. She didn’t say anything further, and I didn’t feel that I could press her, there were any number of ways the two of them might have met, as she had said, The Hague was a small place.
We had reached the exhibition space, which was rapidly emptying out. An usher approached and asked if we were attending the dinner, and if so, could we please make our way downstairs. Eline and I looked at each other, Jana was nowhere in sight, and after a moment we went down to the museum lobby, where an elaborate scene had been produced. There were long banquet tables covered in white cloth. At various stations around the lobby they had set up spreads of food in perfect imitation of the paintings in the exhibition.
It’s like an inversion of Zeuxis and Parrhasius, Eline said with an amused smile. I tried to recall the specifics of the reference, something that I had learned in school, a story about a contest to determine the best painter in ancient Greece. I remembered that Zeuxis created a painting of grapes so realistic that birds swept down to peck at the panel. That was only half the story, and I couldn’t remember what followed, what the rival painter Parrhasius had produced. The image of the birds swooping down through the crowd, their wings beating upon the panel, had subsumed the rest of the narrative. In any case, as Eline had said the scene in the lobby was certainly a perfect inversion of the painting Zeuxis had made, they had even set up frames around each tableau, through which guests were invited to reach, in order to take a piece of cheese or a leg of meat or indeed to pluck a grape.
I was sure Jana must be pleased, it was an impressive, even ostentatious, display. The room was crowded with delighted guests, the noise and chatter of their appreciation. Jana appeared behind us at that moment, slinging an arm around my shoulder, and asked what we thought. Eline said at once that it was wonderful, and Jana said that they had commissioned a food artist to make the dioramas, a young woman who had studied at the Rijksakademie and was now getting commissions from all the big biennials. She was whisked away before she could continue, I saw that she was animated by the success of the evening. There was no formal seating plan, instead there was a towering stack of plates piled on a table set in the middle of the lobby. Guests were crowding around the paintings, plates in hand, sawing away at sides of meat and cheese wheels through the various picture frames, the entire scene was bizarre and amusing.