50 Fun Facts About Vermeer

In which Dutch city did Vermeer live and work his whole life?

He was baptized, married, painted and buried there, earning the nickname 'The Sphinx of Delft'.

Which museum holds Girl with a Pearl Earring?

It arrived in The Hague by bequest in 1902 after selling at auction for about two guilders.

Roughly how many paintings did 21st-century scholars universally attribute to Vermeer?

Thoré-Bürger once credited him with 66; he probably painted fewer than 50 in total.

What kind of light source lights most of Vermeer's interior scenes?

Hans Koningsberger noted that nearly all of them seem set in two small rooms of his Delft house.

What object did Vermeer paint out of The Milkmaid, later revealed by X-ray?

He also painted over a large wall map behind her; the removals tightened the focus on the pouring milk.

How old was Vermeer when he died in December 1675?

His widow blamed financial stress; he went 'from being healthy to being dead' in a day and a half.

Which expensive blue pigment did Vermeer use unusually lavishly?

He even laid it under earth colours like umber and ochre to cool their shade.

Which novelist wrote the 1999 novel Girl with a Pearl Earring?

Her fictional servant-model was played by Scarlett Johansson in the 2003 film.

What is the Dutch term for a painted 'head' that was not meant as a portrait?

Girl with a Pearl Earring is one; it depicts 'exotic dress' and an 'oriental turban'.

Which Vermeer was stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990?

Thieves dressed as policemen took 13 works; it is thought to be the most valuable unrecovered painting.

Who was appointed trustee of Vermeer's estate after his death?

The microscopist worked for the Delft city council as a surveyor.

Which river's calm harbour, nicknamed the Kolk, reflects the buildings in View of Delft?

Two herring busses sit before the Rotterdam Gate; the Schiedam Gate stands mid-composition.

Which Vienna institution displays The Art of Painting?

It spent the war in Hitler's Linz collection and was rescued from a salt mine at Altaussee.

What religion did Vermeer convert to before his 1653 marriage?

His mother-in-law Maria Thins, wealthier than he was, probably insisted on it.

What was the name of Vermeer's wife?

She bore 15 children and was left in debt when he died.

How many children did Vermeer's wife give birth to?

Four were buried before baptism; she still had 11 to raise when he died.

Which 2013 documentary follows an inventor recreating The Music Lesson with mirrors?

Tim Jenison spent five years testing his comparator-mirror theory.

Which British artist argued in 2001 that Vermeer used optics to compose his pictures?

The Hockney–Falco thesis also roped in Holbein and Velázquez.

Which Dutch forger sold fake Vermeers, one of them to Hermann Göring?

He confessed to forgery to dodge a treason charge for selling Dutch cultural property to the Nazis.

The Astronomer and The Geographer are both thought to portray which man?

A 2017 study found both canvases came from the same bolt of cloth.

Which Paris museum owns The Astronomer?

France took it in lieu of inheritance tax from the Rothschilds in 1983.

Which 19th-century French critic's 1866 catalogue revived interest in Vermeer?

He ascribed more than 70 works to Vermeer, many of them doubtful.

Which trade association did Vermeer join on 29 December 1653?

The records show he did not pay the usual admission fee; it was a year of plague and war.

What disaster struck Delft in 1654, the year after Vermeer joined the guild?

The 'Delft Thunderclap' killed painter Carel Fabritius among hundreds of others.

Which 1672 crisis ended Vermeer's sales and wrecked his art business?

French, Münster and Cologne troops invaded; shops, courts and theatres closed.

What nickname did Thoré-Bürger give Vermeer for his mysterious biography?

Until the 19th century only a few registers and documents recorded his life.

How many Vermeer works did the record-breaking 2023 Rijksmuseum show bring together?

More than 650,000 visitors made it the museum's most visited exhibition ever.

Which painting did Salvador Dalí copy and pit against a rhinoceros?

Dalí painted his version on commission from collector Robert Lehman.

Who was the wealthy Delft patron who bought much of Vermeer's output?

His wife Maria de Knuijt was named the main patron by the Rijksmuseum's 2023 curators.

What trade did Hendrick van Buyten, who held Vermeer paintings as collateral, follow?

French visitor Balthasar de Monconys was sent to him in 1663 when Vermeer had nothing to show.

What was the name of the inn Vermeer's father bought on Delft's market square?

The earlier inn he leased in 1631 was called The Flying Fox.

In which church was Vermeer buried?

He was baptized in the Nieuwe Kerk but laid to rest in the Protestant Old Church on the day he died.

Near which city was Girl with a Pearl Earring hidden in caves late in World War II?

It first spent two years in a bombproof bunker under the Mauritshuis before moving to the St. Pietersberg caves.

What colour was the background of Girl with a Pearl Earring originally?

A glaze of indigo and weld over black has faded, leaving the mottled dark we see now.

For roughly how much did Des Tombe buy Girl with a Pearl Earring in 1881?

He paid two guilders plus thirty cents premium for a painting in poor condition, then bequeathed it in 1902.

What did Banksy put in place of the pearl in his 2014 Bristol mural?

He called the piece Girl with a Pierced Eardrum.

Which church spire is deliberately lit and centred in View of Delft?

Its illumination is read as support for the House of Orange, whose tomb of William the Silent it holds.

Where did Vermeer hide his initials in View of Delft?

Five people wait beside that barge to be towed by horse to Rotterdam or Schiedam.

Which French novelist had a character die in front of View of Delft?

Bergotte's last thought is the 'little patch of yellow wall'; Proust himself had a seizure before the picture in 1921.

Who commissioned both View of Delft and The Little Street?

He left Vermeer 500 guilders in his will, worded so Catharina could not inherit it.

On which Delft street did 2015 research place The Little Street?

The quay dues register pinned it to numbers 40 and 42, beside a passage called the Tripe Gate.

What did Vermeer's aunt sell from the house on the right of The Little Street?

The passageway beside it was known as the Penspoort, or Tripe Gate.

Which muse, wearing laurel and holding a trumpet, poses in The Art of Painting?

Her attributes match Cesare Ripa's Iconologia; the map behind her shows the Seventeen Provinces.

Which painter's forged signature once appeared on The Art of Painting?

Gustav Waagen recognised Vermeer's hand in the Czernin gallery around 1860.

Who bought The Art of Painting in November 1940 for 1.82 million Reichsmark?

Agent Hans Posse acquired it for the planned Linz museum; it was found in the Altaussee salt mine in 1945.

What did close study reveal about the balance in Woman Holding a Balance?

The picture was long called Woman Weighing Gold; a Last Judgment hangs behind her.

Which US museum owns Woman Holding a Balance?

It sold for 155 guilders at the 1696 Dissius sale, below The Milkmaid's 177.

Which Dirck van Baburen painting hangs in the background of two Vermeers?

Vermeer's mother-in-law owned it, and Vermeer painted the same subject himself.

Which forged 'Vermeer' did Hermann Göring trade 137 looted paintings for?

It was found in an Austrian salt mine in May 1945 and traced back through dealer Alois Miedl.

Which family's famous collection sold The Milkmaid to the Rijksmuseum in 1908?

Thirty-nine works changed hands after public squabbling and a debate in parliament.