View of Delft by Johannes Vermeer

View of Delft by Johannes Vermeer

A town under moving cloud

Vermeer looks at Delft from the south, across the harbour. Left of centre stands the Schiedam Gate with its little clock tower; to the right, the twin turrets of the Rotterdam Gate, with moored boats in front. Cloud fills more than half the canvas, and its shadow lies over the near walls and the water, while further back the red roofs and the pale tower of the Nieuwe Kerk stand in full sun. A few townspeople talk on the sandy bank in the foreground. The reflections in the still water are painted with almost as much care as the town itself.

Light laid on in grains

Close to, the hulls of the boats and the brick of the gates are scattered with small dots of pale paint, the device Vermeer used to make light seem to sit on a surface, and stone, tile, timber and water are each given a different texture. It is one of only two townscapes by him that survive. Marcel Proust admired it above almost any other picture, and in “In Search of Lost Time” the novelist Bergotte dies in front of it, looking at a little patch of yellow wall.

Where it hangs

The painting has belonged to the Mauritshuis in The Hague since 1822, when it was bought for the museum on the orders of King William I. It measures 96.5 by 115.7 centimetres.

About this print

Made from a 6,000-pixel photograph of the original, enough to print sharply at up to about 40 inches on its longest side.

Sources: Mauritshuis, The Hague · Wikidata Q523974 · Wikimedia Commons