Vermeer A Life Lost and Found ~ UK SIGNED FIRST/FIRST

GRAHAM DIXON ANDREW

ISBN 10: 1846147107 / ISBN 13: 9781846147104

Edité par PENGUIN UK, 2025

A propos de cet article

SCARCE SIGNED! FIRST EDITION, first printing. Book is brand new and unread. Personally hand signed to the full title page by the author, Andrew Graham-Dixon. NOT inscribed to anyone. NOT a tip in. NOT a bookplate. Dust jacket hand covered in protective archival grade Mylar for many worry free years of reading/collecting! This revelatory biography persuasively addresses the two great unresolved questions about Vermeer why did he paint his pictures, and what do they mean? One spring day in 1683, a notary s clerk in Delft entered the home of the late Magdalena Pieters van Ruijven and stumbled on one of the wonders of the seventeenth century world: twenty paintings by Johannes Vermeer. How had this one Dutchwoman come to possess the majority of the master s work? And why have these images among the most beautiful, even sublime, in the history of art defied explanation for so long? Following new leads and drawing on freshly uncovered evidence from Dutch archives, acclaimed art historian Andrew Graham Dixon presents a dramatic and transformative new interpretation of the artist s life and work. Rich with piercingly direct descriptions of Vermeer s paintings, Graham Dixon s biography is full of revelations. It upends the master s enigmatic reputation and depicts him instead as a pioneer of the early Enlightenment, a pacifist who was deeply affected by the wars and religious conflicts of the Dutch Republic and allied to a radical movement driven underground by persecution.

N° de réf. du vendeur ABE-1761790854623

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Vermeer A Life Lost and Found ~ UK SIGNED FIRST/FIRST
• Éditeur: PENGUIN UK
• Date de parution: 2025
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 1846147107
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9781846147104
• Reliure: Hardcover
• Édition: 1st Edition
• État de l'article: New
• État de la jaquette: New
• Signé: Signed by Author(s)

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

‘This book is going to revolutionize the way we understand Vermeer' Peter Carey

The paintings of Johannes Vermeer of Delft are some of the most beautiful, even sublime, in the history of art. Yet like the life of Vermeer himself, they are mysterious and have for centuries defied explanation. Following new leads, and drawing on a mass of historical evidence, some of it freshly uncovered in the archives of Delft and Rotterdam, Andrew Graham-Dixon paints a dramatically new picture of Vermeer, revealing many of the painter’s hitherto unknown friendships as well as his previously undetected allegiance to a radical movement driven underground by persecution.

He also vividly evokes the world of the Dutch Republic as it was in its so-called Golden Age. This was a watery world of fortresses and flood plains, taverns rocked by argument and cities stunned by devastating attacks and explosions: all linked by a network of canals where a uniquely efficient public transport system, operated by horse-drawn passenger barge, enabled people, goods and ideas to glide effortlessly from one place to another. The author sets Vermeer firmly in the context of his time, revealing the patterns of patronage that make sense of his work, and also exposing the difficulties posed by his home life, which was dominated by his Jesuit mother-in law and disturbed by the psychotic behaviour of her only son.

In the past Vermeer has been imagined as a remote and enigmatic figure, but he emerges from this new account as a man deeply engaged with his own society: well-travelled, a reader of books, a man personally connected to many of the most interesting people of his time, including merchants, philosophers, preachers, bankers and regents, as well as his childhood friend, a philanthropic baker named Hendrick van Buyten. Vermeer was also deeply affected by the struggles that shook his world, the Eighty Years War for Dutch independence and the yet more terrible Thirty Years War, which ravaged the neighbouring German lands and resulted in the deaths of millions. The author shows how he was moved to become a pacifist by such atrocities, and thereafter made many of his closest friends in the ranks of Europe’s first peace movement. A further revelation is that Vermeer’s closest collaborator and chief patron was a woman, as were many others in his immediate circle. These are all previously untold stories.

The many piercingly direct descriptions of Vermeer’s pictures, which are the heart of the book, shed new light on the intentions of the artist. Nearly all of his best loved works, Graham-Dixon shows, were originally painted for a single significant location in Delft. In light of such discoveries every one of Vermeer’s major paintings, including The Girl with a Pearl Earring, A View of Delft and The Milkmaid, are reassessed and their meanings rethought. As a result the two great unresolved questions about Vermeer – why did he paint his pictures, and what do they mean? – are persuasively answered here for the first time.

À propos de l?auteur

Andrew Graham-Dixon is an art historian, biographer and broadcaster who has made more BBC television series about art than any other presenter. He was for many years the main art critic of the Sunday Telegraph and Independent. Of his biography of Caravaggio, Peter Carey said ‘it is a thrilling lesson in the art of seeing’ and Neil MacGregor wrote ‘the man and his work emerge enriched and enlightened.’ It has been translated into many languages.