The Geographer

(De geograaf)

c. 1668-1669
oil on canvas
20 7/8 x 18 1/4 in. (53 x 46.6 cm.)
Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main

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critical excerpt

There are two signatures on the Geographer. Scholars once believed that this conspicuous signature on the background wall (with the date in Roman numerals) was not original even though the date, MDCLXVIIII (1669) was compatible with the date most Vermeer experts have ascribed to the painting. Recent restoration have demonstrated that both are original.

This signature on the cupboard is now esteemed to be authentic as the one above.

c.1668-1669
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. Vermeer: The Complete Works, New York, 1997)

1669
Walter Liedtke Vermeer: The Complete Paintings, New York, 2008)

The support is a closed, plain-weave linen with a thread count of 14 x 11 per cm², the original tacking edges of which are still present. The canvas was lined, resulting in weave emphasis.

A gray ground containing chalk, umber, and lead white extends to the tacking edges. The paint was applied wet-in-wet in places. Many different textural effects have been created with the use of glazing, scumbling, impasto, and dry brushstrokes. The vanishing point of the composition is visible in the paint layer on the wall between the chair and the cupboard. Some abrasion, particularly in the shadows in the map, has resulted from past cleaning.

* Johannes Vermeer (exh. cat., National Gallery of Art and Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis - Washington and The Hague, 1995, edited by Arthur Wheelock)

literature

  • (?) Adriaen Paets I, Rotterdam (?1669-d.1686);
  • (?) his son, Adriaen Paets II, Rotterdam (1686-d.1712);
  • sale (Paets et al.?), Rotterdam, 27 April 1713, no. 10 or 11, sold together;
  • Hendrick Sorgh, Amsterdam (?1713-d.1720);
  • Sorgh sale, Amsterdam, 28 March 1720, no. 3 or 4, sold together;
  • Govert Looten, Amsterdam (before d.1727);
  • Looten sale, Amsterdam, 31 March 1729, no. 6, sold together with pendant of the same no. Jacob Crammer Simonsz, Amsterdam (by d.1778);
  • Crammer Simonsz sale, Amsterdam, 25 November 1778, no. 18, sold together with pendant (to De Vries);
  • Jean Etienne Fizeaux, Amsterdam (1778-d.1780);
  • his widow, Amsterdam (1780-?1785);
  • [Pieter Fouquet, Amsterdam, and Alexandre Joseph Paillet, Paris, 1784-85];
  • Jan Danser Nijman, Amsterdam (?before 1794-d.1796);
  • Danser Nijman sale, Amsterdam, 16 August 1797, no. 168, sold separately (to Josi);
  • [Christian Josi, Amsterdam and London];
  • Arnoud de Lange, Amsterdam (?1797-d.1803);
  • De Lange sale, Amsterdam, 12 December 1803, no. 55 (to Coclers);
  • Johann Goll van Franckenstein, Jr., Velzen and Amsterdam (before 1821);
  • Pieter Hendrick Goll van Franckenstein, Amsterdam (before 1832);
  • Goll van Franckenstein sale, Amsterdam, 1 July 1833, no. 47 (to Nieuwenhuys);
  • [Christian Johannes Nieuwenhuys, Brussels and London; sold to Dumont];
  • Alexandre Dumont, Cambrai (before 1860-66);
  • Isaac Péreire, Paris, 1866 (sold via Thoré-Bürger from Dumont);
  • Péreire brothers sale, Paris, 6 March 1872, no. 132;
  • (?) Max Kann, Paris (?1872);
  • [Sedelmeyer, Paris, c. 1875; sold to Demidoff];
  • Prince Demidoff di San Donato, near Florence (before 1877-80);
  • Demidoff sale, San Donato, 15 March 1880, no. 1124 (to Bösch?);
  • Adolf Josef Bösch, Döbling, Vienna (?1880-d.1884);
  • Bösch sale, Vienna, 28 April 1885, no. 32 (to Ludwig Kohlbacher of the Frankfurter Kunstverein on behalf of the Städelsches Kunstinstitut);
  • 26 May 1885 to the Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main (inv. 1149).

exhibitions

The opening page of
Ethica
Baruch Spinoza

While not free from religious conflict, the Netherlands has a long tradition of religious tolerance. The Union of Utrecht declared individuals free to choose their own religion. For centuries the Dutch Reformed Church was the privileged church, but other denominations were allowed to perform their worship services. The Dutch Republic became a refuge for religious and political dissidents from abroad, including such groups as Jews and Huguenots, as well as such noted individuals as Baruch de Spinoza and René Descartes. In combination with a vibrant commercial culture and schools that were developing excellent reputations, this tolerant society provided fertile soil for cultivating a scientific way of looking at the world.

However, tolerance did not reside in a coherent body of law although Dutch intellectuals vigorously discussed the foundations of their new republic. More generally, the climate of lenience and a free press allowed thinkers like Coornhert, Grotius, and Gerard Noodt, as well as foreign residents or visitors like Bayle and Locke, to explore the philosophical properties of tolerance. However, there were clear boundaries beyond which they could not venture.

Spinoza and his followers discovered that freedom of conscience did not mean freedom of thought. They risked censure and punishment especially when their works were seen as undermining the Christian foundations of the Republic. Despite such limitations, it was precisely this philosophical speculation that over time helped the Netherlands to serve as a model elsewhere.

Anthonie van Leeuwenhoek (detail)
Jan Verkolje
56 x 47.5 cm
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

In the Geographer, Vermeer was most likely guided by someone familiar with geography and navigation as demonstrated by the artist's sophisticated description of the scientific instruments. Moreover, none of these expensive instruments are mentioned in the artist's death inventory. In Delft, Anthony van Leeuwenhoek was well known for his discoveries with the microscope but was also described as being skilled in "navigation, astronomy, mathematics, philosophy and natural sciences." He was born in Delft on 1632 the same year as Vermeer. Some experts believe it was Van Leeuwenhoek who posed for both the Geographer and the Astronomer and perhaps commissioned them too. A portrait (see detail left) by Delft painter Jan Verkolje shows the scientist when he was 54 years old, some 18 years after Vermeer's painting. Whether or not the features are similar to the long-haired scholar in Vermeer's painting is debatable.

Cartography is one of the oldest human occupations. It evolved to a high standard of a science, a technology and an art, especially from the Renaissance and onwards; its peak was reached in the 17th and 18th centuries.. The historian R.S. Westfall has demonstrated that almost "two out of five" scientists were then dealing with cartography.

The Dutch were then world leaders in the field of cartographic production: globes, maps, charts and atlases were issued in unprecedented quantities during the 17th century in the Netherlands. In Vermeer's time, mapmaking and painting were not clearly distinct disciplines as they are today. 17th-century mapmakers required a combination of skills. Other than a thorough knowledge of surveying, the mapmaker had to know how to draw, watercolor and create decorative motifs. If the maps were to be reproduced, he had to be thoroughly versed in engraving, printing, calligraphy and marketing techniques as well.

Such sophisticated products remained expensive so the number of specialists remained small. Elaborate, decorative maps, like those in Vermeer's paintings, were sold alongside books in specialty shops on Binnenhof in The Hague and around Dam Square in Amsterdam.

Floris Balthasar, a mapmaker, citizen of Delft and member of the St. Luke's Guild of Delft, would have regarded himself as a "cunstwerker in caerten," an artist in mapmaking.

Balthasar pointed out the dual functions of the map. On one hand they could be used for military operations, for architecture, for hydraulic works, for sea trade and for questions of land ownership. On the other hand, maps could be collected to increase knowledge of the world, insight into history and the joy of learning of God's creation of the world.

Terrestrial Globe
Jacobus Hondius 1618

Why and for whom were globes made?
by P.C.J. van der Krogt

The initial impetus for developing the manufacture of globes as a commercial enterprise, was provided by a thirst for geographical information in the period of the great discoveries. Subsequently, periods of increased activity in globe production almost always accompany an increased interest in geography and astronomy. When, at the end of the sixteenth century, trade routes from the Northern Low Countries were extended to the furthest continents, globe production started in Amsterdam. A general increase in interest in the natural sciences, including astronomy and mathematical geography, provided the map-seller Gerard Valk with the stimulus for producing new globes in about 1700. The revival of interest in geography provided by the exploration of the Congo towards the end of the nineteenth century, supplied the reason for a renewed home production of globes in Belgium. Less readily understandable is Vandermaelen's activity in the 1830's. He only began making globes after it became clear that there was a definite demand for geographical information. This demand was apparent from the huge success of Vandermaelen's Atlas Universel.

In 1921, Stevenson concluded: "Primarily we may say that globes were constructed for the useful purpose of promoting geographical and astronomical studies, generally recording the latest and best geographical and astronomical information and in form superior to that which could be set down on the plane map, but they also had a place of importance, secondary we may call it, on account of their decorative value." His conclusion attributes to a globe an excessively large up-to-date scientific worth. The geographic information on globes was hardly revized. From a commercial point of view, it was not always possible to alter globes once they had been made. The correction of engraved copper plates was an expensive operation, while in many cases the supply of printed gores was sufficient to last for a goodly number of years. Globes generally show a geographical picture that was up-to-date at the time the plates were engraved. But globes were subsequently produced for a long time from prints made with the same copper plates, which were hardly if at all altered. The majority of globes was quite out-of-date at the moment of sale. Stevenson's assertion that globes in general give the best and most recent geographical and astronomical information is therefore incorrect.

Commercial manufacturers of globes tried to attribute greater value to their products. Among other things, they advertised their globes as a scientific aid for the solution of mathematico-geographical and astronomical problems. Especially in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, people tried to get the globe accepted as a navigational instrument, by means of which it should be possible to determine the shortest distance between two points on the earth's surface quite accurately, and so set a course accordingly. Van Langren and Hondius both gave this as a reason for making globes. Experienced seamen rejected globes in practice, partly because of their impracticality on board ship and partly due to the difficulties involved in making accurate measurements round a curved surface.

Other globe-makers, like Blaeu and Plancius, wanted to serve the interests of astronomy by producing a new celestial globe, with which observations of the stars could be made more accurately.

The consistent singing of the praises of the great value of the globe for navigation, by both scholars and globe-makers and its frequent use in iconography with a nautical connection (the title-pages of sea-atlases, prints of mariners giving instruction in seafaring, and in portraits of navigators), had an important side-effect. The globe became a symbol of navigation, and therefore a desirable object among Dutch merchants.

This "side-effect" is of fundamental importance: not only did it produce an unequalled blossoming and expansion in the production of globes in early 17th-century Amsterdam. It also made it possible to sell out-of-date globes. Those who purchased globes for their symbolic value, were not so concerned about having a scientifically accurate globe with all the most recent geographical and astronomical information. Its decorative aspect was of prime importance. It sometimes happened that globes a full century out of date were sold. Blaeu's globes continued to be sold throughout the 18th century, at first new ones, but later as second-hand objects. During the same period, the modern globes of Valk could be bought, but these were less ornamental than those of Blaeu.

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