Another posibility is that Vermeer got his lenses from his friend Antoni van
Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) , who made about 500 optical lenses during his life.
Van Leeuwenhoek lived also in Delft.

"ingo" <ing### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
news:Xns### [at] povrayorg...
> in news:3da300eb$1@news.povray.org Ive wrote:
>
> > Yes, I know the rumours about his use of a camera obscura. In my
> > opinion, this is not true.
>
> If he did he wasn't the only one ...
>
> > But anyway, if he has used such advanced technologies and optical
> > utilities,
>
> ... there was a lot more technology available these days than one may
> think. Doing this kind of work with a normal, pinhole, camera obscura is
> near impossible due to the lack of strong light sources. But lenses
> where already available, Christiaan Huygens (1624 - 1695) was one of the
> great lens grinders of his time. Vermeer (1632 - 1675) may have been
> very well aware of these tools. It is for example known that Rembrand
> (1606 - 1669) used lenses and has met Huygens.
>
> A great book on all this is:
> Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters
> by David Hockney
> Viking Press; ISBN: 0670030260
>
> There also was a great documentary on the subject on the BBC:
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/1595979.stm
>
> Ingo

Post a reply to this message