Page:Hofstede de Groot catalogue raisonné, Volume 1, 1908.djvu/608

 584 JOHANNES VERMEER SECT. and other objects. A small quadrant hangs from the ceiling. The astronomer wears a loose grey garment with puffed sleeves ; his soft cap is pushed to one side of his head, and his long curls fall down on his shoulders. Panel, 19 inches by 14^ inches. Compare the sale notices of 5. Sales. Isaac Pereire, Paris, March 6, 1872, No. 133 (4000 francs). Kums, Antwerp, May 17, 1898, No. 114. Now in the collection of the Vicomte du Bus de Gisignies, Brussels. 5. THE ASTRONOMER. B. 34 ; H. 37. A young scholar, dressed in a bluish-grey dressing-gown, the turned-up edges of which show an orange lining, stands bending over a table upon which he leans with his left hand. On the table a map of the stars is spread out beside a carpet carelessly rolled up. The scholar holds a pair of compasses in his right hand ; glancing up from his work he looks to the left. His insignificant features, framed in dull fair curls, are touched by the light of a grey day, which enters from a window to the left and illumines to a moderate degree the rest of the apartment. The leading of the window is the same as in the Rothschild picture (6). In the background to the left is a cupboard, on the top of which are a celestial globe and some books ; to the right is an arm-chair, above which a map hangs on the grey lime- washed wall. At the edge of the right foreground is a footstool. Signed on the upper right-hand panel of the cupboard door "J. Meer" (with the J and M joined). On the right-hand upper corner of the wall are another signature and date, which are not genuine. Compare the similar picture in the Rothschild collection, which was probably dated 1673 ; this must have been painted about the same time. Canvas, 21 inches by i8| inches. An old copy was in the sale of M. Neven, Cologne, May 17, 1879. Sales. Rotterdam, April 27, 1713, No. 10 (with pendant, 300 florins). Hendrik Sorgh, Amsterdam, March 28, 1720, No. 3 (with pendant, 1 60 florins). Govert Looten, Amsterdam, March 13, 1729, No. 6 (with pendant, 104 florins). As this picture and 6 were certainly sold as pendants at the J. Danser Nijman sale, Amsterdam, 1797, it may be assumed that they were also sold together at the three sales already named, the catalogues of which give inadequate descriptions of them. But the pictures had been once separated in the meanwhile, between 1729 and 1797. Sales. Jacob Crammer Simonsz, Amsterdam, November 25, 1778, No. 20 (172 florins, Wubbels). J. Danser Nijman, Amsterdam, August 16, 1797, No. 168 (133 florins). Jonkheer J. Goll van Franckenstein, Amsterdam, July I, 1833, No. 47 ( X 95 florins, Nieuwenhuys). In the Dumont collection, Cambrai, 1860 catalogue. Sale. Isaac Pereire, Paris, March 6, 1872, No. 132 (7200 francs). In the collection of Max Kann, Paris. Sales. Demidoff, San Donato, near Florence, March 15, 1880, No. 1124. Ad. Jos. Bosch, Vienna, April 28, 1885, No. 32.