Johannes Vermeer was a Dutch Baroque Period painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. He is considered one of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age. During his lifetime, he was a moderately successful provincial genre painter, recognized in Delft and The Hague. He produced relatively few paintings, primarily earning his living as an art dealer. He was not wealthy; at his death, his wife was left in debt.
Jan Havickszoon Steen was a Dutch Golden Age painter, one of the leading genre painters of the 17th century. His works are known for their psychological insight, sense of humour and abundance of colour.
The Milkmaid, sometimes called The Kitchen Maid, is an oil-on-canvas painting of a "milkmaid", in fact, a domestic kitchen maid, by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer. It is in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, which regards it as "unquestionably one of the museum's finest attractions".
Leonaert Bramer, also Leendert or Leonard, was a Dutch painter known primarily for genre, religious, and history paintings. Very prolific as a painter and draftsman, he is noted especially for nocturnal scenes which show a penchant for exotic details of costume and setting. He also painted frescos—a rarity north of the Alps—which have not survived, as well as murals on canvas, few of which are extant. Bramer is one of the most intriguing personalities in seventeenth-century Dutch art.
Saint Praxedis is an oil painting by Johannes Vermeer. This attribution has often been questioned. The painting is believed to be a copy of a work by Felice Ficherelli that depicts the early Roman martyr, Saint Praxedis or Praxedes.
The Wine Glass is an oil-on-canvas painting by Johannes Vermeer, created c. 1660, now in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. It portrays a seated woman and a standing man drinking in an interior setting. The work contains the conventions of genre painting of the Delft School developed by Pieter de Hooch in the late 1650s. It contains figures situated in a brightly lit and spacious interior, while its architectural space is highly defined. The figures are set in the middle ground, rather than positioned in the foreground.
Pieter Claeszoon van Ruijven has been known as Johannes Vermeer's main patron for the better part of the artist's career, but in 2023 his wife Maria de Knuijt was identified by the curators of the 2023 exhibition of Vermeer's works at the Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam as the main patron due to her long-standing and supportive relationship with the artist. He built a sizeable estate from inheritances he and his wife received and fruitful investments. In 1669, he became the Lord of Spalant when he purchased land owned by Willem, Baron van Renesse.
Study of a Young Woman is a painting by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer, completed between 1665 and 1667, and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
The Lacemaker is a painting by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675), completed around 1669–1670 and held in the Louvre, Paris. The work shows a young woman wearing a yellow bodice, holding up a pair of bobbins in her left hand as she carefully places a pin in the pillow on which she is making her bobbin lace.
Jan Verkolje or Johannes Verkolje was a Dutch painter, draughtsman and engraver. He is mainly known for his portraits and genre pieces of elegant couples in interiors and, to a lesser extent, for his religious and mythological compositions. He was a gifted mezzotint artist. Trained in Amsterdam, Verkolje spent his active professional career in Delft where he had access to powerful patrons.
The Allegory of Faith, also known as Allegory of the Catholic Faith, is a Dutch Golden Age painting by Johannes Vermeer from about 1670–1672. It has been in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since 1931.
The Geographer is a painting created by Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer in 1668–1669, and is now in the collection of the Städel museum in Frankfurt, Germany. It is closely related to Vermeer's The Astronomer, for instance using the same model in the same dress, and has sometimes been considered a pendant painting to it. A 2017 study indicated that the canvas for the two works came from the same bolt of material.
View of Delft is an oil painting by Johannes Vermeer, painted c. 1659–1661. The painting of the Dutch artist's hometown is among his best known. It is one of three known paintings of Delft by Vermeer, along with The Little Street and the lost painting House Standing in Delft, and his only cityscape. According to art historian Emma Barker, cityscapes across water, which were popular in the Netherlands at the time, celebrated the city and its trade. Vermeer's View of Delft has been held in the Dutch Royal Cabinet of Paintings at the Mauritshuis in The Hague since its establishment in 1822.
The Procuress is a 1656 oil-on-canvas painting by the then 24-year-old Johannes Vermeer. It can be seen in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden. It is his first genre painting and shows a scene of contemporary life, an image of mercenary love perhaps in a brothel. It differs from his earlier biblical and mythological scenes. It is one of only three paintings Vermeer signed and dated. In 1696 the painting, being sold on an auction in Amsterdam, was named "A merry company in a room".
Jacob Abrahamsz. Dissius was a Dutch typographer and printer. He inherited a collection of 21 of Johannes Vermeer's works, including The Milkmaid, Portrait of a Young Woman, A Girl Asleep, Woman Holding a Balance, and The Music Lesson. In 1680, he married Magdalena, daughter and sole heir of Vermeer's main patron Maria de Knuijt, her mother, with her father Pieter van Ruijven. Dissius died in 1695, and his collection was auctioned off in Amsterdam the following year.
Mistress and Maid is an oil-on-canvas painting produced by Johannes Vermeer c. 1667. It portrays two women, a mistress and her maid, as they look over the mistress' letter. The painting displays Vermeer's preference for yellow and blue, female models, and domestic scenes. It is now in the Frick Collection in New York City.
Walter Arthur Liedtke, Jr. was an American art historian, writer and Curator of Dutch and Flemish Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He was known as one of the world's leading scholars of Dutch and Flemish paintings. He died in the 2015 Metro-North Valhalla train crash.
Johannes Vermeer was a Dutch Baroque Period painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle class life. His works have been a common theme in literature and films in popular culture since the rediscovery of his works by 20th century art scholars.
Maria Simonsdr de Knuijt was a patron of the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. She provided support and financial assistance to Vermeer throughout his career. De Knuijt was married to Pieter van Ruijven, a wealthy citizen of Delft, Netherlands. Pieter had been identified as Vermeer's main patron, owning more than half of Vermeer's oeuvre. Scholarship in 2023 identified de Knuijt as the main patron, as she had known him for some time and was more directly involved with the artist. After van Ruijven and de Knuijt died, their estate was inherited by their daughter Magdalena. She died about one year after her mother, and the estate was then inherited by her husband Jacob Dissius and his father Abraham Dissius.
