The Astronomer

If you go to the Louvre (which is the most famous art museum in the world), the most crowded room is always Room 38, the Salle des États.  There is always a throng of camera-wielding tourists who are trying to take the definitive photograph of the most reproduced work of art in the world, the Mona Lisa.  Most of these tourists will leave slightly disappointed, since the painting is smaller than most imagine, it is firmly secured behind several inches of bullet-proof glass, and its protective varnish coating has become so dark in the two centuries since it was last replaced that it is hard to see any details of the painting.

At right is a view of the reverse of the Mona Lisa—the view the museum rarely shows.  If you watched the recent movie, The Glass Onion, you know they mistakenly showed the painting on canvas but as you can see, it is actually painted on a poplar wood panel.

If you go there, ignore the Mona Lisa because the gift shop will sell you a postcard that gives you a much better image than you can see competing to stand in front of the painting, itself.  Instead, look around the room at some of the Louvre’s most famous paintings that are all in the same room and which are, for the most part, completely ignored.  The Virgin and Child with St. Anne is there (also by Leonardo da Vinci), along with The Coronation of Napoleon by Jacques-Louis David.  One painting that is hard to miss is the Wedding at Cana by Paolo Veronese (It’s the largest painting in the museum).

That last painting, The Wedding at Cana, really shouldn’t even be in the Louvre, since Napoleon looted it from Venice.  In the last two centuries Venice has demanded it back several times, but the Louvre says it is too fragile to survive the trip.  Recently, the Museum gave Venice a high-resolution copy of the painting and declared the matter closed.  (It costs 15 Euros to enter the museum and it won’t accept high-resolution copies of the currency.) 

When you are finished viewing the paintings in Room 38, go up to the second floor to room 837 in the Richelieu Wing.  There you will find two incredible Vermeer paintings.  The first is The Lacemaker, in which a young woman is depicted, focused intently on her lace-making.  She sits at a table with various lace-making tools and materials, illustrating Vermeer’s masterful use of light and texture.  

The second painting is The Astronomer, in which a scholar is seen who is deeply engaged in his studies.  The painting shows a man seated at a desk that is covered with books and scientific instruments, such as a globe and a book of astronomical charts.  The man wears a Japanese robe—garb that was reserved for scholars at the time.  

The Astronomer originally was part of a pendent painting—a pair of paintings with the same theme.  This painting was meant to be displayed with another Vermeer painting, The Geographer, that depicts the same man studying a globe.  Both paintings were produced during a period when scientific discoveries were sweeping through Europe.

Both works were signed by Vermeer and both works used the same model, who is believed to be Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, the self-taught scientist and the founder of the field of microbiology.  

The two paintings remained together for over a century, being sold to various owners.  Such sales were usually part of estate sales after the deaths of their owners.  In 1803, at one such sale, the two paintings were finally separated.  After many sales, The Geographer was sold to the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, in 1885, where it remains today, while The Astronomer was sold to Alphonse James de Rothschild, and it stayed in the family until the Rothschilds sold it to the French Government in partial payment of estate taxes in 1983.  The little brass plaque at the Louvre explains this to the viewer.

What the brass plaque does not explain is that for a few years, the painting was part of the personal collection of Adolf Hitler.

Although it is common knowledge that the Nazis looted artwork—particularly art owned by Jewish families—from all of occupied Europe, it is less well known that both Hitler and Goring had lists of artworks of special interest that that were actively hunted for the Nazi leaders’ personal art collections.

While there is evidence that The Astronomer spent some time in Hitler’s personal residence, by the war’s end, the painting had been put in storage, awaiting the construction of the  Führermuseum, to be built in Linz, Austria, that Hitler envisioned to showcase “his” vast collection of art.  

Hitler planned on building the largest and best art museum in the world and planned to fill it with the finest art in the world.  It was not revealed until after the war that Hitler actually had compiled a list of the art works he wanted (including art from both the United States and the Soviet Union).  The fact that all of the art in his museum was to be be stolen didn’t matter to der Fuehrer.  

After the war, the Allies’ Monuments Men recovered the painting from a salt mine of Altaussee  returned the painting to the Rothschild Family.  The photo at right shows the actual recovery of the Vermeer painting.

When the Nazis took the painting, they stamped the reverse of the painting with a Swastika in black ink.  It’s still there, and while the Louvre will share a photo of the back of the Mona Lisa with the public, it won’t publish a photo of the back of The Astronomer.

And that’s okay, we don’t need to see it…It’s only the front of the painting that is important.