The astronomer plays a special role in Jan Vermeer van Delft's complete works, together with his counterpart, The Geographer, because they only show one person at a time and is one of the artist's few own hand-dated paintings. The representation of the astronomer in a closed space, bent over books and a globe, shows this in the then gradually obsolete idea of ??the astronomer as a theoretical, world-facing thinker. At that time just emerging, empirical research, for example, by the use of telescopes, Vermeer does not yet show in this painting. It is unclear in Vermeer's research whether this is a portrait of a real person, for which his friend Antoni van Leeuwenhoek would be an option, or whether it is an idealistic stylization, which would correspond to the Dutch fashion of the time. The painting is in the permanent exhibition of the Louvre.

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The Astronomer by Jan Vermeer van Delft. Available as an art print on canvas, photo paper, watercolor board, uncoated paper or Japanese paper.
globe · science · astronomy · astronomer · astrology · astrologist · male · interior · rf 1938-28 · astronomer · astrologer · Louvre, Paris, France / Bridgeman Images