860-880 North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois, Details

This attribution presents a fascinating puzzle: the title references Mies van der Rohe's iconic 1951 modernist apartment towers on Chicago's lakefront, yet it's attributed to Willem van der Vliet, a Dutch Golden Age painter who died in 1642—over three centuries before these buildings were constructed. Van der Vliet was a Delft-based artist known for historical allegories and portraits during the Dutch Golden Age, working alongside contemporaries in the circle that would later include Vermeer. The medium listed is graphite on linen, an unusual combination that differs from van der Vliet's typical oil paintings on panel or canvas documented in museum collections.

The work's large scale and architectural subject matter suggest this may be a case of misattribution, mislabeling, or possibly a conceptual artwork exploring historical layers. If this is indeed a drawing of the Lake Shore Drive towers' details, it would represent a study of Mies van der Rohe's revolutionary curtain wall system with its exposed steel mullions and floor-to-ceiling glass—details that defined International Style architecture. The graphite on linen technique would allow for precise architectural rendering with a textile backing. Without viewing the actual artwork, it's essential to approach this piece with curiosity about how these seemingly incompatible elements—a 17th-century Dutch portraitist and 20th-century Chicago modernism—came to be associated.