Art represented in fiction: Vermeer's Girl with a Flute

Kudos to SyFy's show Dominion. This week's episode titled "Black Eyes Blue" finds the archangel Michael visiting his sister Uriel with a Vermeer that she's been searching for. For those not familiar with the show, it is the tale of events some 20 plus years after the movie Legion.

What I was almost astonished to see was the representation of Vermeer's Girls with a Flute. The painting hangs in the National Gallery in Washington D.C. You'll see in the photo below they got the size and frame spot on. Thank you to Fred Du Freez who is the set decorator on this episode for getting it right.

This reminded me of one thing that always bothered me about Dan Brown's book, The Da Vinci Code. While investigating a murder Robert Langdon takes Caravaggio's Death of the Virgin from the wall of the Louvre to find a message written on the back. The painting is actually 12 feet high and 8 feet wide. This would be impossible for one or even two people to accomplish. Below is a scene cut from the film where the painting is about half it's actual size. They got the frame right but luckily they reworked this scene and cut the downsized Caravaggio out altogether.

Me and the real Girl with the Flute and Katherine De Candole as Uriel holding her newly acquired "Vermeer"

Me with the real Death of the Virgin and Audrey Tautou and Tom Hanks running past the downsized version for the film.