Reconstructions of Vermeer's Rooms

drawings by Philip Steadman

IIt is curious that two of the most insightful twentieth-century Vermeer-related investigations were not conducted by art historians, but by the American economist John Michael Montias (Vermeer and His Milieu, 1989) and the English architect, Philip Steadman (Vermeer's Camera: Uncovering the Truth behind the Masterpieces, 2002).

Steadman’s study of Vermeer and the camera obscura not only became the topic of a heated debate amongst savvy art historians, but following press coverage and TV documentaries, it stirred considerable interest among the art-loving laymen as well. Since the book's publication the majority of historians have accepted Steadman’s hypothesis—sustained by painstaking documentation and intellectual clarity—that Vermeer systematically employed the camera obscura as an aid to plan his compositions, study the optical effects of his scenes and in some instances, imitate the peculiarities of the camera obscura image. But more remarkably, Steadman provides significant evidence that the artist may very well have projected the camera’s image directly onto his blank canvases in order to trace the outlines of a large parts of his compositions (or alternately first onto paper then transferred to the canvas).

About the drawings

Steadman's research brought him to make scale geometric drawings of the spaces and items of furniture depicted in ten of Vermeer’s domestic interiors. They were constructed by a method of "reverse perspective." In the normal process of setting up perspectives, one moves from a three-dimensional scene to a two-dimensional image. By essentially reversing this process, one can move from a two-dimensional image (such as one of Vermeer’s canvases) to a three-dimensional scene. The method is explained in detail in Chapter 5 of Vermeer’s Camera, "Reconstructing the spaces in Vermeer’s paintings." Three drawings are included showing the space of each painting: an "axonometric" bird’s eye view, a plan, and a side view. An axonometric is a specialized form of perspective in which the plan preserves its true scale and there is no diminution with distance.

Mr. Steadman has graciously allowed the Essential Vermeer website to publish these drawings which can be accessed below in high-resolution.

Scale

The scale of the reconstructions can be gauged by the floor tiles: the small tiles in The Glass of Wine and The Girl with the Wineglass are 14.6 cm. (≈5 3/4 in.) square. The larger tiles in all the other paintings are 29.3 cm. (≈11 1/2 in.) square. More details are given in Vermeer’s Camera Appendix B, "Measurements of Vermeer’s room and furniture." Here estimated sizes are also given for the various pieces of furniture.

In some cases examples of these items survive in museum collections, and so actual measurements can be obtained from the originals. These known sizes make it possible in turn to derive dimensions for the architecture of the room: the floor tiles, windows and so on. Appendix B discusses some uncertainties involved in some of the measurements and minor inconsistencies between different paintings.

The viewpoint of each drawing (the position at which Vermeer would have put his eye in order to see the scene as it appears in the painting), is labeled with a cross. Only those parts of the tiled floors that are visible in the paintings are shown in the plans. In some instances the positions of objects or parts of objects which are not wholly visible but can be located with certainty, for example the legs of chairs or the feet of tables, are shown in dotted lines.

The website www.vermeerscamera.co.uk, where these drawings are also available, provides additional information.