What painting by Johannes Vermeer depicting an astronomer is in the Louvre?

What painting by Johannes Vermeer depicting an astronomer is in the Louvre? The Astronomer is the Louvre painting.

Vermeer completed The Astronomer around 1668, during the Dutch Golden Age. The oil painting shows a scholar leaning over a celestial globe, with a book on the table identifying his intellectual and astronomical interests. The work measures roughly 51 by 45 centimeters.

The globe is based on a model by Jodocus Hondius, while the open book is Adriaan Metius’s 1621 Institutiones Astronomicae Geographicae. The wall painting depicts the Finding of Moses, a detail often interpreted as linking learning, divine wisdom, and the pursuit of knowledge.

The Astronomer is closely related to Vermeer’s The Geographer: both pictures are thought to depict the same man and share a similar room and furnishings. A common mix-up is choosing The Geographer, which is also associated with scientific study but is not the Louvre’s astronomer scene. Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Milkmaid are famous Vermeer paintings, but neither is the work described here.