Johannes Vermeer was a Dutch painter of the seventeenth century, working in the town of Delft and now regarded as one of the greatest artists of the Dutch Golden Age. He is known for quiet, luminous scenes of domestic interiors and everyday life, painted with extraordinary sensitivity to light, colour and texture.
Vermeer produced a remarkably small body of work, with only a few dozen paintings securely attributed to him, and he seems to have worked slowly and for a limited circle of patrons. Celebrated works include The Milkmaid, Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Art of Painting and View of Delft. After his death his reputation faded, and it was largely revived in the nineteenth century by critics who championed his work. For students of historic interiors, his paintings are an invaluable record of seventeenth-century Dutch homes, showing chequered marble floors, leaded windows, maps and paintings on whitewashed walls, oriental carpets draped over tables, Delftware, chairs with lion finials and fine textiles. Genuine works almost never reach the market, but prints, reproductions and furnishings in the Dutch taste reflect his enduring influence.
