''A View of Delft, with a Musical Instrument Seller's Stall'' is a 1652 painting by

Carel Fabritius Carel Pietersz. Fabritius (; bapt. 27 February 1622 – 12 October 1654) was a Dutch painter. He was a pupil of Rembrandt and worked in his studio in Amsterdam. Fabritius, who was a member of the Delft School, developed his own artistic style ...

. It is an

oil painting Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...

canvas Canvas is an extremely durable plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, shelters, as a support for oil painting and for other items for which sturdiness is required, as well as in such fashion objects as handbags ...

of 20.9 by 35.7 cm (8.2 by 14.1 in) of a

cityscape In the visual arts, a cityscape (urban landscape) is an artistic representation, such as a painting, drawing, print or photograph, of the physical aspects of a city or urban area. It is the urban equivalent of a landscape. ''Townscape'' is ...

Delft Delft () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam, to the southeast, ...

. The work has been in the collection of the

National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director o ...

in London since 1922. The unusual perspective distortion, especially visible to the right of the church, suggests that it may have been intended to have been displayed on a curved surface at the back of a perspective box (and viewed through a peephole,) hence making an illusion of

anamorphosis Anamorphosis is a distorted projection requiring the viewer to occupy a specific vantage point, use special devices, or both to view a recognizable image. It is used in painting, photography, sculpture and installation, toys, and film special e ...

. Fabritius is mentioned in contemporary documents in connection with perspective boxes.Key facts
,

. Retrieved on 21 August 2014. The view is of the Nieuwe Kerk facing the

Town Hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

and several houses, one of which is still extant, at the point where the Oude Langendijk canal meets the Vrouwenrecht. The size of the canvas, exceptionally small for a cityscape of its kind, also supports the perspective-box hypothesis. Another possibility is that Fabritius designed the picture with the aid of a double-convex lens, as these may create distorted proportions in a pattern akin to those seen in the painting. However, material analyses carried out during conservation strengthen the possibility of the perspective-box view. It is likely that the body of the viol at bottom left would have been completed by a separate painted piece within the perspective box. Liedtke suggests that the resulting composition, viewed from the peephole, would have made the viol and the choir of the Nieuwe Kerk approximately the same size, thus juxtaposing the sacred space of the church with the world of the senses represented by the musical instruments. The lute, one of which is depicted to the left of the instrument seller, commonly appeared in treatises on perspective, such as that of

Albrecht Dürer Albrecht Dürer (; ; hu, Ajtósi Adalbert; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528),Müller, Peter O. (1993) ''Substantiv-Derivation in Den Schriften Albrecht Dürers'', Walter de Gruyter. . sometimes spelled in English as Durer (without an umlaut) or Due ...

as a demonstration of how to project irregular, rounded shapes onto flat surfaces; thus it may demonstrate a certain self-awareness of technical skill by the painter. Liedtke ''A View of Delft: Vermeer and his Contemporaries'' p. 53.The Nieuwe Kerk in Delft is also notable for containing the tomb monuments of

William the Silent William the Silent (24 April 153310 July 1584), also known as William the Taciturn (translated from nl, Willem de Zwijger), or, more commonly in the Netherlands, William of Orange ( nl, Willem van Oranje), was the main leader of the Dutch Re ...

and later Princes of Orange; the church was therefore a site with distinct political meaning in the 17th century and thereafter.

References

External links

*
A View of Delft
' at the

website 1652 in the Dutch Republic 1652 paintings Cityscape paintings Collections of the National Gallery, London History of Delft Musical instruments in art Paintings by Carel Fabritius {{17C-painting-stub