Julie, this is fascinating. I don't know enough about Vermeer's total oeuvre to do more than speculate but that doesn't stop me doing so. I note that it's a different representation of Cupid in each case so it's more than just copying a particular painting. I still wonder where the eventual buyer fits in.
I'm not a particular admirer of Vermeer, apart from one painting that I saw for the first time low down on a wall in the Rijksmuseum. It stopped me in my tracks. I didn't even know who painted it - I'd just come out of a roomful of Vermeers and thought it must be someone else's - Hobbema perhaps, on a very good day...
So I'll go back and peer again at The Little Street, looking for traces of Cupid.
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