Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632 - 1723)

. . . my work, which I've done for a long time, was not pursued in order to gain the praise I now enjoy, but chiefly from a craving after knowledge, which I notice resides in me more than in most other men. And therewithal, whenever I found out anything remarkable, I have thought it my duty to put down my discovery on paper, so that all ingenious people might be informed thereof.

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (Letter of June 12, 1716)

Tge Geographer by Vermeer

The Geographer (detail)
Johannes Vermeer

The Astronomer by Vermeer

The Astronomer (detail)
Johannes Vermeer

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

Portrait of Anthony van Leeuwenhoek (detail)
by J. Verkolje
1686
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Did Antonie van Leeuwenhoek model for Vermeer's paintings?

Many critics have asked if the young men who appear in The Geographer and The  Astronomer (which seem to be the same man) represent Antonie van Leeuwenhoek. A detail of J. Verkolje's portrait (above right) of the scientist dates 1668 when he was  54 years of age. If  Van Leeuwenhoek did indeed pose in Vermeer's paintings, he would have done so when he was approximately 32 seeing that the two paintings are generally dated near 1668.

Among the few documents that reveal Vermeer's life is this note from the delft public records which states that the aldermen of the city designate Anton Leewenhoek as the receiver in the bankruptcy case of Catharina Bolnes, Vermeer widow. It is dated September 30, 1676, a year after the artist's death. Ironically, both men's names appear on another page in the Delft ledger: the one recording their births in 1632.

Arthur Wheelock, curator of Northern Painting in the Washington National Gallery and noted Vermeer expert, believes that not only did Van Leeuwenhoek sit for Vermeer's two paintings but that they may have even been commissioned by the scientist himself. On the other hand, John Michael Montias, noted Vermeer expert and author of Vermeer and his Milieu, sees no particular resemblance between "the elegant, distinguished-looking scholars portrayed in The Astronomer and The Geographer and the course- featured Van Leeuwenhoek." In Verkolje's portrait, Van Leeuwenhoek  has a nose similar to Vermeer's man but his face seems broader although this discrepancy could be explained by the difference in age.

Antonie van LeeuwenhoekVan Leeuwenhoek first encountered magnifying glasses when he was sixteen. He was working in Amsterdam as an apprentice and bookkeeper to a Scottish textile merchant, where magnifying glasses were used to count thread densities for quality control purposes. Aged 20, he returned to Delft and opened as a linen-draper. He prospered, being appointed Chamberlain to the Sheriffs of Delft in 1660, and becoming a surveyor nine years later.

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Anthonie van Leeuwenhoek

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In 1668 van Leeuwenhoek paid his first and only visit to London, where he probably saw a copy of Robert Hooke's Micrographia (published 1665) which was in common circulation at the time, and which included pictures of textiles that would certainly have been of interest to the cloth merchant. In April 1673 he reported his first observations - bee mouthparts and stings, a human louse and a fungus - to the Royal Society, which was published in Philosophical Transactions. He was elected a member of the Royal Society in 1680 and continued his association, writing hundreds of letters to the Society during his lifetime. Experiments on pepper, to discover if its heat was caused by spikes, caused him to put peppercorns in water and let them soften for three weeks. On 24th April 1676 he observed the water and was surprised to see tiny organisms; the first bacteria observed by man. His description read:

[They] were incredibly small, nay so small, in my sight, that I judged that even if 100 of these very wee animals lay stretched out one against another, they could not reach to the length of a grain of coarse Sand'.

Van Leeuwenhoek's letter announcing this discovery caused such doubt at the Royal Society that he had to enlist an English vicar, as well as jurists and doctors, to confirm that his report was based on true observations. Robert Hooke later repeated the experiment and was able to confirm his discoveries.

Leeuwenhoek's gravemarker

The memorial and grave of the Antonie van Leeuwenhoek is in the tower wall of the Oude Kerk in Delft, on the side of the northern aisle. The memorial was commissioned by his daughter Maria. The poem chiselled in the wall at the entrance was written by Huibert Corneliszoon Poot, a good friend of Van Leeuwenhoek:

‘Hier Rust Anthony van Leeuwenhoek out synde 90 jaar, 10 maanden en 2 dagen. Heeft elk, o wandelaer alom ontzagh voor hoogen ouderdom en wonderbare gaven. Soo set eerbiedigh hier uw stap. Hier legt de gryse wetenschap in Leeuwenhoek begraven.’

[‘Here rests Antonie van Leeuwenhoek having reached the age of 90 years, 10 months and two days. O stroller, be respectful of great old age and wonder.]

As well as being the father of microbiology, van Leeuwenhoek laid the foundations of plant anatomy and became an expert on animal reproduction. He also discovered sperm, blood cells and microscopic nematodes, and studied the structure of wood and crystals. He developed a way to grind powerful lenses, and made over 400 microscopes (most of them permanently attached to a specimen) to view specific objects, only nine of which survive today. Leeuwenhoek’s study became a meeting point of famous people, even the Russian Tzar Peter the Great paid a visit to him. Nonetheless, the microscopist was not too friendly, as Hartsoeker's account attests, and was cautious not to give out any information on his techniques.

His attention was then drawn to spermatozoa in the semen of a man suffering from venereal disease; his student thought that it was a symptom of corruption. Van Leeuwenhoek was already aware of spermatozoa, and knew it was normal. After an experiment he 'performed without defiling' himself he reported the findings to the Royal Society in November 1677, requesting them not to publish the letter, believing it would lead to disgust or scandal. They published anyway. He considered this discovery to be one of the most important in his career. Over the next forty years he examined and described the spermatozoa from mollusks, fish, amphibians, birds and mammals, coming to the novel conclusion that fertilization occurred when the spermatozoa penetrated the egg.

Leeuwenhoek was the only microscopist of the time who could view specimens by transmitted rather than reflected light. He was the first to see red blood cells and bacteria although there was little conception of their nature at that time.

Leeuwenhoek's viewing technique, however, prevented him making the type of dissections carried out by Malpighi, Grew, and Swammerdam. Nevertheless, his outstanding observations including the first description of spermatozoa which he called 'animacules', led to his election as a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1680. He was a friend of the painter Jan Vermeer (1632-1675), and the microscope may have inspired Dutch artists of the period in their endeavors to reproduce the surface textures of cloth, insects, fur, feathers, glass, and mirrors.

Lens technology caused a number of viewing problems. The spherical curvature of lenses resulted in an image which was blurred at the edges (spherical aberration). Unequal refraction of light rays produced a colored edge to the image (chromatic aberration). Diffraction errors made specimens appear as if they were composed of minute globules which early microscopists took to be fact.

Light microscope - theories of life

The microscope contributed to 17th century intellectual arguments about the origins of life. The theory of 'preformation' held that embryos were already perfectly formed in miniature and only required nourishment to grow. Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694) and Jan Swammerdam (1637-1680) were 'ovists', believing that female eggs contained preformed embryos. Some ovists also believed in the concept of embôitement - that all the generations of men and women had been contained in the eggs of Eve, and that the human race would end when the last egg was used up. Leeuwenhoek (who was one of the first to see spermatozoa) and another Dutch observer, Nicholas Hartsoeker (1656-1725) were 'animaculists' and described spermatozoa as containing perfectly formed humans. A more traditional theory was William Harvey's concept of epigenesis, formulated without using the microscope.

His name at birth was Thonis Philipszoon. His letters were signed Antoni van Leeuwenhoek. He was probably known as Van Leeuwenhoek from a young age because he was born in a house at the corner of Lion's Gate in Delft. Van Leeuwenhoek translates as From Lion's Corner. This house no longer exists. The image to the right shows the corner of Lion's Gate in Delft as it appears today.

Van Leeuwenhoek Resources

the site of Anthonie van Leeuwenhoek's house in Delft

His name at birth was Thonis Philipszoon. His letters were signed Antoni van Leeuwenhoek. He was probably known as Van Leeuwenhoek from a young age because he was born in a house at the corner of Lion's Gate in Delft. Van Leeuwenhoek translates as From Lion's Corner. This house no longer exists. The image to the right shows the corner of Lion's Gate in Delft as it appears today.

publications - websites

Leeuwenhoek and Vermeer

from:
Mariët Westermann
"Vermeer and the Interior Imagination",
in Vermeer and the Dutch Interior,
Madrid, 2003, pp. 226-227

In Delft, vision-extending and vision-transforming instruments such as the camera obscura must have been readily available. They were the passion of Anthonie van Leeuwenhoek, an industrious researcher now best known for his discovery of micro-organisrns through the microscope. It is almost impossible to imagine that these exact contemporaties, both baptized in 1632 and both high achievers in their fields, would not have come across each other in small city of Delft. They shared an artisanal base for their advanced artistic and scientific researches: just as Vermeer would have had to follow a standard artistic apprenticeship, Van Leeuwenhoek worked his way up from the cloth trade and little erudition to become a Fellow of the Royal Society in London, purely on the merits of his experimental research. Van Leeuwenhoek later served as the executor of Vermeer's estate. It has often been suggested that Van Leeuwenhoek served as the model for Vermeer's The Astronomer and The Geographer. Although the suggestion can neither be substantiated nor disproved, the accurate rendition of scientific materials in both paintings confirms that, at the very least, Vermeer must have been in regular contact with someone of Van Leeuwenhoek's erudition.

Van Leeuwenhoek, Huygens, and their associates in the Royal Society and elsewhere in mid-I7th century Europe shared a tremendous confidence in vision-extending technologies, a self- assurance that can be seen as an extension of long-standing European trust in vision itself as the primary sense by which we know the world. Van Leeuwenhoek exalted over the "new worlds" revealed daily under his microscope, and this industrious man lived his motto: "By diligent labor one discovers matters that could not be discerned before". Vermeer's paintings can in part be thought of as the artistic analogue to Van Leeuwenhoek's confidence. Carefully worked and seemingly "natural" they let us see the world as we do not normally see it, framed and rendered in surprising new ways that are unmatched by the naked eye.

Whether Van Leeuwenhoek or another contemporary introduced Vermeer to the camera obscura is immaterial. For Vermeer's usage, it is more relevant that connoisseurs of art and science saw camera obscura imaging as a mode of picturing closely allied with the making of paintings. This was the case especialiy in the Netherlands. In 1622, having just been introduced to the camera obscura, Huygens enthused that "it is impossible to express its beauty in words. The art of painting is dead, for this is life itself: or something higher, if we could fìnd a word for it." Huygens's phrasing constituted a direct chalierige to painting. Painting is dead at the hands of the camera obscura, and the camera obscura image is praised as being "life itself; or something higher" These words and sentiments would have stung any ambitious painter, for representing life - or the best of it - had been the theoretical and practical mandate of easel painters since the 15th century. Ever since Jan van Eyck, Netherlandish painters had enjoyed a highly successful record of fìnding pictorial analogues for life, and now the camera obscura, a mechanistic instrument, presented real competition in the market for lifelike images. As that market was virtualiy insatiable in the Dutch Republic, Huygens's challenge will have been theoretical rather than urgent, but an artist of Vermeer's searching ambition is likely to have taken up the gauntlet.




These were among the first observations on living bacteria ever recorded.

On September 17, 1683, Leeuwenhoek wrote to the Royal Society about his observations on the plaque between his own teeth, "a little white matter, which is as thick as if 'twere batter." He repeated these observations on two ladies (probably his own wife and daughter), and on two old men who had never cleaned their teeth in their lives. Looking at these samples with his microscope, Leeuwenhoek reported how in his own mouth: "I then most always saw, with great wonder, that in the said matter there were many very little living animalcules, very prettily a-moving. The biggest sort. . . had a very strong and swift motion, and shot through the water (or spittle) like a pike does through the water. The second sort. . . oft-times spun round like a top. . . and these were far more in number." In the mouth of one of the old men, Leeuwenhoek found "an unbelievably great company of living animalcules, a-swimming more nimbly than any I had ever seen up to this time. The biggest sort. . . bent their body into curves in going forwards. . . Moreover, the other animalcules were in such enormous numbers, that all the water. . . seemed to be alive."