In one painting, a military officer in a Dutch sitting room flirts with a laughing girl. In another, a woman at a window weighs pieces of silver. Vermeer's paintings haunt us with their beauty and mystery--what stories lay behind these stunningly rendered moments? As Timothy Brook shows us, these pictures, which seem so intimate, actually offer a remarkable view of a rapidly expanding world. The dashing officer's hat is of beaver fur from Canada, while the pieces of silver, mined in Peru, might be used to purchase the ...
Read More
In one painting, a military officer in a Dutch sitting room flirts with a laughing girl. In another, a woman at a window weighs pieces of silver. Vermeer's paintings haunt us with their beauty and mystery--what stories lay behind these stunningly rendered moments? As Timothy Brook shows us, these pictures, which seem so intimate, actually offer a remarkable view of a rapidly expanding world. The dashing officer's hat is of beaver fur from Canada, while the pieces of silver, mined in Peru, might be used to purchase the Chinese porcelain seen in other Vermeer paintings. Moving outward from Vermeer's studio, Brook traces the web of trade that was spreading across the globe in the seventeenth century. The wharves of Holland, wrote a French visitor, were "an inventory of the possible." Vermeer's Hat shows just how rich this inventory was, and how the urge to acquire such things was refashioning the world more powerfully than we have yet understood.
Read Less
Add this copy of Vermeer's Hat: the Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of to cart. $4.93, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Baltimore rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Halethorpe, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2013 by Penguin Books Canada.
Add this copy of Vermeer's Hat: the Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of to cart. $4.93, fair condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Baltimore rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Halethorpe, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2013 by Penguin Books Canada.
Add this copy of Vermeer's Hat: the Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of to cart. $37.26, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2013 by Penguin Canada.
Not one of those books that has you glued but full of a wealth of information about how the 17th Century world was like. Very interesting. I have enjoyed it tremendously, but it does not flow like a novel, rather it studies several of Vermeer s paintings and compares them with his contemporary artists then proceeds to inform about all the world influences in the paintings. Unique and informative.