Vermeer’s Hat. The 17th Century and the Dawn of the Global World

The story begins with the author falling off his bicycle in the Dutch city of Delft, which forces him to explore the city and… fall in love with it. The narrator poses questions that lead him to the artist Jan Vermeer and, strangely enough, send him to Shanghai. What is the connection, for example, between China and the Netherlands in the 17th century, between Vermeer and the Chinese artist Dong Qichang? Timothy Brook draws attention to the curious objects in Vermeer’s paintings, and the story about them leads the reader to an understanding of the distant world of the East.

According to the author's intention, the paintings become windows for us, through which we see how everyday life—from Delft to Beijing—has changed, along with people's thinking, as the world became global in the 17th century.