A scholar in a long robe leans toward a celestial globe, one hand reaching out to turn it, an open book on the table. Vermeer painted it in 1668 as a companion to The Geographer, which hangs in Frankfurt.

In 1940 the Nazis seized it from the Rothschild family in Paris; it was earmarked for Hitler’s planned museum, and the back still bears a stamp from that time. It was returned after the war.