Johannes Vermeer

Johannes Vermeer
Detail of the painting The Procuress (c. 1656), considered to be a self portrait by Vermeer
Born	Baptized (1632-10-31)31 October 1632 Delft, Dutch Republic
Died	buried 15 December 1675(1675-12-15) (aged 43) Delft, Dutch Republic
Nationality	Dutch
Education	Carel Fabritius?
Known for	Painting
Notable work	34 works have been universally attributed to him
Movement	Dutch Golden Age Baroque

Johannes, Jan or Johan Vermeer (/vərˈmɪər/;Dutch: [joːˈɦɑnəs jɑn vərˈmeːr]; 1632 – December 1675) was a Dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. Vermeer was a moderately successful provincial genre painter in his lifetime. He evidently was not wealthy, leaving his wife and children in debt at his death, perhaps because he produced relatively few paintings.

Vermeer worked slowly and with great care, and frequently used very expensive pigments. He is particularly renowned for his masterly treatment and use of light in his work.

Vermeer painted mostly domestic interior scenes. "Almost all his paintings are apparently set in two smallish rooms in his house in Delft; they show the same furniture and decorations in various arrangements and they often portray the same people, mostly women."

He was recognized during his lifetime in Delft and The Hague, but his modest celebrity gave way to obscurity after his death. He was barely mentioned in Arnold Houbraken's major source book on 17th-century Dutch painting (Grand Theatre of Dutch Painters and Women Artists), and was thus omitted from subsequent surveys of Dutch art for nearly two centuries. In the 19th century, Vermeer was rediscovered by Gustav Friedrich Waagen and Théophile Thoré-Bürger, who published an essay attributing 66 pictures to him, although only 34 paintings are universally attributed to him today. Since that time, Vermeer's reputation has grown, and he is now acknowledged as one of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age.