The Vermeer Passion Review of Shlyapa Vermeera. XVII vek i rassvet global'nogo mira [Vermeer’s hat: The seventeenth century and the dawn of the global world], by T. Brook, trans. I. Litvinova (Moscow: Slovo, 2024), Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found, by A. Graham-Dixon (London: Allen Lane, 2025)

The studies under review are united by the presence of Vermeer’s name in the title but demonstrate different research approaches. Using the depictions of objects in Vermeer’s paintings as a starting point, T. Brook analyzes the emergence of globalization in the 17th century and the role of European trade with China; he also explores the difficulties of intercultural communication in the realities of that era. А. Graham-Dixon provides a detailed account of the historical and religious background against which Vermeer’s paintings were created. The author emphasizes the profound religious contents of a significant number of Vermeer’s paintings and offers an original interpretation, which links the emergence of these contents to the affiliation of Vermeer’s immediate circle and even the artist himself with the Remonstrants and the Collegiants.

Brook, T. Shlyapa Vermeera. XVII vek i rassvet global'nogo mira [Vermeer’s hat: The seventeenth century and the dawn of the global world], translated from English by I. Litvinova. Moscow: Slovo, 2024. (In Russian)
Brook, T. Velikaya derzhava Kitai i ves' mir [Great state: China and the world], translated from English by V. Frolov. Moscow: Slovo, 2024. (In Russian)
Darnton, R. Velikoe koshach'e poboishche i drugie ehpizody iz istorii frantsuzskoi kul'tury [The great cat massacre and other episodes in French cultural history], translated from English by T. Dobronitskaya, and S. Kullandy. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2023. (In Russian)
Dmitrieva, A.A. “Kartina Yana Vermeera Delftskogo “Allegoriya zhivopisi” (“Zhivopisets v masterskoi”). Osnovnye problemy ikonografii” [The picture by Jan Vermeer van Delft The Allegory of Painting (Painter in His Studio)]. Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo universiteta. Seriya 2: Istoriya, no. 3 (2009): 130–39. EDN: KWQNSF (In Russian)
Davis, N.Z. Damy na obochine: tri zhenskikh portreta XVII veka [Women on the margins: Three seventeenth-century lives], translated from English by T. Dobronitskaya. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2021. (In Russian)
Davis, N.Z. Vozvrashchenie Martena Gerra [The return of Martin Guerre], translated from English by A.L. Velichanskii. Moscow: Progress, 1990. (In Russian)
Fukuyama, F. “Konets istorii? ”[The end of history?], Voprosy filosofii, no. 3 (1990): 134–48. (In Russian)
Brook, T. Great State: China and the World. London: Profile Books, 2019.
Brook, T. The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
Brook, T. “The Final Piece of the Puzzle. The Secret Meaning of Vermeer’s Art.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 6395 (2025): 14–16.
Brook, T. The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010.
Graham-Dixon, A. Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane. London: Allen Lane, 2009.
Graham-Dixon, A. Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2008.
Graham-Dixon, A. Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found. London: Allen Lane, 2025.