Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World

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Douglas Smith writes in The Seattle Times "In Brook's hands Vermeer's canvases, together with a painting by a second-rate contemporary and an old chipped Delft plate, are just bright lures to catch our attention before he takes us on his rich, suggestive tours of the 17th-century world." He goes on to say: "In recounting these tales of international trade, cultural exchange and foreign encounter, Brook does more than merely sketch the beginnings of globalization and highlight the forces that brought our modern world into being; rather, he offers a timely reminder of humanity's interdependence." Mathematician Pierre de Fermat dies at Castres January 12 at age 63, having (with the late Blaise Pascal) founded the probability theory (his remains will be reburied in the family vault at Toulouse). In the Washington Post, Michael Dirda writes: "Vermeer's Hat ... provides not only valuable historical insight but also enthralling intellectual entertainment."

The most conspicuous argument against their pendant status is that the Girl with a Flute doesn't uphold the overall technical excellence of its counterpart. However, scientific analysis reveals that the inconsistencies can be reasonably attributed to the subpar state of conservation of the Girl with a Flute. Alternatively, the possibility that the work was intentionally left unfinished remains open.

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Peter Conrad, writing in The Observer, is more critical. He is of the opinion that "Brook is so intent on cost and the grim injustice of expropriation that he can seem crassly unresponsive, indifferent to the almost beatific peace of the paintings" and "knows everything about price, but rather less about value."

In the paintings of the 1660s the painted surfaces are smoother and less tactile, the lighting schemes tend to be less bold. These pictures convey and impalpable air of reticence and introspection, unique among genre painters with the possible exception of Gerrit ter Borch. Gertruy Reynier Vermeer, Vermeer's sister, is buried at the beginning of May in the New Church in Delft. Sept. 27, The island of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea falls to the Ottoman Turks after a 21-year siege. The juxtaposition of the ordinary and extraordinary stands as one hallmark of the tronie genre (refer to the Special Topic box below). Irrespective of this, the girl's partially open mouth automatically excludes the work from being classified as a portrait, given that the depiction of teeth or the tongue was consistently avoided in true portraiture, arguably the most traditional facet of 17th-century artistry.

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Pierre de Fermat, French mathematician, dies. His equation xn + yn = zn is called Fermat's Last Theorem and remained unproven for many years. The history of its resolution and final proof by Andrew Wiles is told by Amir D. Aczel in his 1996 book Fermat's Last Theorem. Fermat's Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem by Simon Singh was published in 1997. In 1905 Paul Wolfskehl, a German mathematician, bequeathed a reward of 100,000 marks to whoever could find a proof to Fermat's "last theorem." It stumped mathematicians until 1993, when Andrew John Wiles made a breakthrough. Molière's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme includes a ballet with music by court composer Jean Baptiste Lully, 38, who has come to France from his native Florence and changed his name from Giovanni Battista Lulli. The ballet is so popular that four performances are requested in the space of 8 days.