The Geographer
1669 · Oil on canvas · Städel Museum, Frankfurt
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About this work
- Artist
- Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675)
- Year
- 1669
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Original size
- 53 × 46.6 cm
- Collection
- Städel Museum, Frankfurt
- Movement
- Dutch Golden Age
A scholar in a Japanese-style robe pauses over a chart with dividers in his hand and looks toward the window, caught in the instant of a thought. Around him are the real tools of the trade: a terrestrial globe published in Amsterdam by Jodocus Hondius in 1618, a cross-staff hanging on the window post, a map on the wall and rolled charts on the floor. Vermeer signed and dated it 1669, one of only three paintings he dated, and it is the companion to The Astronomer in the Louvre, which uses the same model and the same dress; a 2017 study found both canvases came from the same bolt. He revised the picture as he worked, turning the man's head toward the light and the dividers from vertical to horizontal, which gives the figure its sense of movement. The Städel Museum in Frankfurt has owned it since the nineteenth century.
This print reproduces the whole work, uncropped, from a high-resolution scan of the original. The original is in the public domain.
Details & materials
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About this design
The Madten promise
An exhibition poster
The same artwork as a gallery exhibition poster — title, artist & date typeset beneath the image on a soft ground.
