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.
Detail of the painting The Procuress (c. 1656), believed to be a self-portrait by Vermeer
Replica of the St. Luke Guildhouse on Voldersgracht in Delft
A View of Delft after the Explosion of 1654, by Egbert van der Poel
View of Delft (1660–61): "He took a turbulent reality, and made it look like Heaven on earth."
Dutch Golden Age painting
Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history roughly spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) for Dutch independence.
Johannes Vermeer, The Milkmaid (1658–1661)
Frans Hals' tronie, with the later title Gypsy Girl. 1628–30. Oil on wood, 58 cm × 52 cm (23 in × 20 in). The tronie includes elements of portraiture, genre painting, and sometimes history painting.
Paulus Potter, The Young Bull (1647); 3.4 metres wide. An unusually monumental animal painting that challenges the hierarchy of genres.
The Haarlem Painter's Guild in 1675, by Jan de Bray, whose self-portrait is the second from the left
