This chapter describes the starting
point for Steadman's own researches into Vermeer's use of the
camera. Two dozen paintings, the greater part of the artist's
oeuvre, are of domestic interiors. A few of these show distinctive
and unique spaces. But the majority seem to depict just a few
rooms repeatedly, with sitters and furniture rearranged. It is
possible to draw some tentative conclusions about how many rooms
might be involved, by making an inventory of their architectural
features: floor tiles, wooden ceilings, and characteristic patterns
of leading in the window panes. As many as ten pictures seem -
with a few anomalies - to represent the very same room.
