In the manner of Johannes Vermeer
Dutch, 1632–1675
The Sneaker Repairer, 2026
Oil on canvas
50 × 40 cm
Never painted.
Commissioned for the collection, 2026.
PAB 2026.3.5
He is cleaning a white sneaker with a small brush, and he is doing it the way Vermeer's *Lacemaker* makes lace: head down, hands close, nothing else in the world. His tools lie along the bench in the order he will need them. Blue shoe boxes wait on the sill. His phone lies face down beside him, which in 2026 is the most Dutch Golden Age thing a man can do.
The brief
A man at a workbench by the window cleaning a white sneaker with a small brush, tools laid in order, a stack of shoe boxes, a phone face-down. Seventeenth-century Dutch interior oil painting, a single figure absorbed in a quiet task beside a window on the left, cool daylight modelling every surface, ultramarine and lead-tin yellow against grey walls, pearly highlights, a tiled floor in perspective, hushed stillness, extremely fine smooth finish. Museum photograph of the oil painting, soft even gallery lighting, no frame, no text, no wall, no floor, cropped to the canvas edge.
Written to the house rules. The painter's name does not appear.
Take it home
The painting on this room's wall, at its own proportions, nothing written on it.
