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Vermeer and the Delft School
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Description
The man on the left points out an oversized keyhole to the provocatively attired woman next to him, while a similarly dressed woman and a man in fashionable clothing spy through the aperture. This drawing may be a design for the painted exterior of a perspective box, a Dutch specialty best known from Van Hoogstraten's example in the National Gallery, London. Four of the six surviving Dutch perspective boxes bear traces of painted imagery on the exterior, and four reveal views of domestic interiors through the peephole
(as one would expect here). A perspective box by Carel Fabritius is reconstructed in this exhibition. Fabritius may have been inspired by Bramer to paint illusionistic murals, with which Bramer had become well acquainted in Italy during the 1620s. Perhaps Bramer, in turn, picked up the younger artist's interest in the perspective box. It is also possible, however, that in this drawing Bramer was contemplating a mural, perhaps with a small window looking into another room.
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Description