The painting brings out of oblivion the first crafts in Rotterdam, all cane paintings of Adrian Paets, paired with the astronomer, in 1713. And in the pair of paintings, they will pass from hand to hand until almost the beginning of the next century. Over time, the traditional names of the two paintings are often changed: mathematician, philosopher, architect, current.
The peculiarity of the two paintings has always attracted the attention of scholars: the subject is a male figure, which is unusual for Vermeer, who notoriously favors the female figure in his work. See more
Even when he paints men, it is rather in summary silhouettes: the suitor, the musician, the tutor. It is therefore believed that this painting was painted in tandem with the other, of the order of a single revealing: The hypothesis that it could be Antoni van Leeuwenhoek It is very impressive, although there is no evidence. They pose in favor of this conjecture the supposed friendship between the two (because they were born the same year in the same city, for the appointment of Leeuwenhoek as director of the products of the painter, to his death, and to a certain similarity that someone wanted to see in the photo of Jan Verkolje, some years later, and the geographer man); to the detriment that the behavior of Leeuwenhoek place later the death of the artist, it would not make to suppose a previous friendship.