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The Astronomer
Johannes Vermeer · Baroque & Dutch Golden Age
- Artist
- Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675)
- Date
- c. 1668
- Dimensions
- 51 x 45 cm
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Location
- Musée du Louvre, Paris, France
The Astronomer shows a scholar in a long robe seated at a table covered with a heavy patterned carpet, reaching out to turn a celestial globe, an open book before him. Light from a leaded window falls on his face and hands.
A closer look
Vermeer captured the moment of scientific curiosity: the man leans forward, his fingers spread on the globe as if measuring the heavens. The book on the table has been identified as a 1621 treatise on astronomy and navigation, and the globe as one made by the cartographer Jodocus Hondius. On the wall hangs a painting of the finding of Moses, perhaps an allusion to knowledge and guidance. The work has a companion piece, The Geographer, using the same model and room.
History of the painting
In 1940, soon after the occupation of Paris, the Nazis seized the painting from the Rothschild family; it was earmarked for the museum Hitler planned in Linz, and a small swastika stamp was put on the back. After the war it was found among looted art and returned to the Rothschilds, and in 1983 it entered the Louvre in lieu of inheritance tax.
More by Johannes Vermeer
In this gallery
Girl with a Pearl Earring
Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window
The Milkmaid
View of Delft
The Art of Painting
The Little Street
Woman Holding a Balance
The Lacemaker
Famous works elsewhere
- The Geographer 1668
- The Procuress 1656
- Christ in the House of Martha and Mary 1650
- A Girl Asleep 1657
- Diana and her Nymphs 1650