In one painting, a Dutch military officer leans toward a laughing girl. In another, a woman at a window weighs pieces of silver. In a third, fruit spills from a porcelain bowl onto a Turkish carpet. The officer's dashing hat is made of beaver fur, which European explorers got from Native Americans in exchange for weapons. Beaver pelts, in turn, financed the voyages of sailors seeking new routes to China. There - with silver mined in Peru - Europeans would purchase, by the thousands, the porcelain so often shown in Dutch paintings of this time.
Vermeer's haunting images hint at the stories behind these exquisitely rendered moments. As Timothy Brook shows us in Vermeer's Hat, these pictures, which seem so intimate, actually open doors onto a rapidly expanding world.
- ISBN10 1846681200
- ISBN13 9781846681202
- Publish Date 16 July 2009 (first published 26 December 2007)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Profile Books Ltd
- Edition Main
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 288
- Language English