Wall maps and other cartographic objects are depicted in nine of approximately thirty-four paintings attributed to Johannes Vermeer, including the renowned Officer and Laughing Girl and his masterpiece, The Art of Painting. The Frick’s new publication, Vermeer’s Maps, is the most comprehensive study of the artist’s depiction of wall maps to date. Drawing on rare surviving examples of the physical maps and other primary sources, author Rozemarijn Landsman examines this intriguing aspect of Vermeer’s work, greatly enriching and expanding our understanding of the art and life of the “Sphinx of Delft.”
As Landsman writes in the book’s introduction, “While scholars continue to remark on the prominence of maps in Vermeer’s art, these objects are rarely the center of attention. […] Questions about the maps in Vermeer’s paintings linger: What kinds of maps are they? How were they made? For whom were they produced? What were their functions? Above all, the questions of what maps meant for Vermeer and his art and what may have motivated him to choose these specific objects to adorn his painted walls remain to be addressed.”
A doctoral candidate at Columbia University, Landsman was the Anne L. Poulet Curatorial Fellow at The Frick Collection and a member of CODART from 2019 through 2021.
Cover of Vermeer’s Maps
Vermeer’s Maps
Rozemarijn Landsman, with a foreword by Ian Wardropper
Hardcover, 128 pp.
68 col. ills., 30 b/w ills.
ISBN: 9781636810249
New York (DelMonico Books) October 2022