In the manner of Johannes Vermeer
Dutch, 1632–1675
Woman on a Video Call, 2026
Oil on canvas
50 × 40 cm
Never painted.
Commissioned for the collection, 2026.
PAB 2026.3.1
Moving, 16-second loop ·
She is listening, not talking: chin on her hand, a white earphone wire running down to the laptop, the call going on somewhere far from this room. A map hangs on the wall behind her, as it does in half of Vermeer's rooms. He liked to hang the whole world behind a woman giving her attention to a single letter. The letter now talks back, and the meeting could have been one.
The brief
A woman in a blue cardigan seated at a small table by a leaded window, laptop open, listening on a call, one hand at her chin, a map on the wall behind. 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.
