RKD STUDIES

Counting Vermeer: Using Weave Maps to Study Vermeer's Canvases

• Editor’s note — Rick Johnson
• Foreword : Counting on the RKD — Chris Stolwijk and Sytske Weidema

1. The Scientific Examination of Works of Art: Its Potentials and Its Limitations

2. The Use of X-radiographs in the Study of Paintings

• 2.1 The history of X-radiographs in the study of paintings
• 2.2 X-rays and Vermeer
• 2.3 Forgeries of Vermeer paintings
• 2.4 Making and interpreting X-radiographs
• 2.5 X-rays and Vermeer’s painting technique
• 2.6 Condition, past conservation treatments, interventions and ageing
• 2.7 Concluding remarks

3. Sixty Years of Thread Counting

• 3.1 Canvas as a support
• 3.2 Types of weave
• 3.3 Thread density
• 3.4 Properties of the canvas support
• 3.5 Strip widths
• 3.6 Cusping
• 3.7 Secondary cusping
• 3.8 Commission
• 3.9 Warp and weft
• 3.10 Thread count
• 3.11 Weave matches
• 3.12 From analog to digital

4. Computer-Assisted Manual Thread Marking

• 4.1 Why semi-automatic?
• 4.2 Overview
• 4.3 Looking at X-rays
• 4.4 Manual thread count
• 4.5 Preparing the digital image
• 4.6 Strategies for manual counting

5. Automated Creation of Weave Maps

• 5.1 Building a model
• 5.2 The Fourier technique
• 5.3 Parameters of the Fourier spectrum
• 5.4 The countingVermeer software

6. Exploiting Weave Maps

• 6.1 Weave matches
• 6.2 Weft snakes
• 6.3 Cusping
• 6.4 Former Vermeers
• 6.5 Concluding remarks

Appendix I: Paintings, reports and X-radiographs

• L01-L09
• L10-L19
• L20-L29
• L30-L36
• 37-41

Appendix II: Matches

• Weave Match List
• Match 1
• Match 2
• Match 3
• Match 4
• Match 5
• Match 6
• Match 7
• Match 8

Other appendices

• Appendix III: Not Quite Matches
• Appendix VI: Using the Thread Marking Tools
• Appendix V: Snapshots
• Appendix IV: Weave Map Scrolls
• Appendix VII: Software

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• About the authors
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