The Painter from Behind, Without a Model
From the Whatifs Catalogue, the encyclopedia of paintings that never were. Lot of the day on Oct 1.
Created with AI, after Johannes Vermeer, public domain.
The Painter from Behind, Without a Model is an imagined painting attributed, within the Whatifs fiction, to Johannes Vermeer (c. 1666). It belongs to the Whatifs series of works the great masters never painted.
History and rediscovery
No one knows Vermeer's face. This small canvas shows a painter from behind facing a blank canvas and, in a mirror, a blurred reflection: perhaps his only self-portrait. Discovered in 2025 behind a framed sea chart in a harbour master's office in Zeeland.
Sale
Within the fiction, the painting sold for €54,000,000 (2025). Tap the board above to replay the imagined bidding. The auction pictured below never took place.
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See also
- Judith, the Morning After, Artemisia Gentileschi
- The Dancer Who Leaves, Edgar Degas
- Venus in Winter, Sandro Botticelli
Notes
- Image generated with AI from a prompt written by Whatifs. No real painting, signature or auction house is reproduced.
- Story written for Whatifs. Any resemblance to real discoveries is coincidental.
