Art › Vienna › The Kunsthistorisches Museum
The Art of Painting
Die Malkunst
A painter seen from behind paints a young woman dressed as Clio, the muse of history, a great map of the Netherlands on the wall.
Behind a heavy curtain we look over a painter's shoulder as he begins the laurel wreath of his model, Clio, with her trumpet and her book. The map shows the Netherlands still whole, before they split.
Vermeer kept it all his life, and his widow tried to save it from his creditors. Hitler bought it in 1940 for the museum he planned in Linz; after the war it came to this museum. Stand before it in 3D ›
