Luci LaSombra Vermeer Gallery
VERMEER: A TINY HISTORY

Home

back to luci's site

 
  • 1632 Johannes Vermeer born, Delft, Holland, of Reynier Vermeer, silk weaver and art dealer.
  • 1641 The Vermeers moved into "Mechelen", an inn on the market square in Delft.
  • 1653 Vermeer married Catherina Bolnes, daughter of Maria Thins.
  • 1655 Vermeer's father Reynier died.
  • 1657 An inventory lists a painting The Visit of the Holy Women to the Tomb of Christ valued at 20 guilders.
  • 1662 Vermeer chosen as a member of the Board of the St. Lukes Guild, a trade association of artists.
  • 1663 A French visitor, Balthasar de Monconys offered a Vermeer painting by a baker for 480 guilders.
  • 1672 The Vermeers moved to Maria Thins' house on the Oude Langendijk.
  • 1675 Vermeer died.
  • 1676 Antony van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), the microscopist, named trustee for the Vermeer estate.
  • 1676 Inventory of the estate: 19 paintings bequeathed to Catherina Bolnes and Maria Thins.
  • 1676 Catherina Bolnes pays a debt of 617 guilders to a baker with two paintings.
  • 1680 Maria Thins died.

Vermeer, Jan (1632-1675), Dutch painter, who excelled in portraying comfortable interior scenes that are composed with mathematical clarity and suffused with cool, silvery light.

Vermeer, also called Jan van der Meer van Delft, was born in Delft and baptized on October 31, 1632. After serving a 6-year apprenticeship, part of it probably under the Dutch painter Carel Fabritius, he was admitted in 1653 to the guild of St Luke of Delft as a master painter. An important member of the guild, he served four terms on its board of governors and been well appears to have known to his contemporaries. He made a modest living as an art dealer rather than as a painter.

Only 35 of Vermeer's canvases have survived, and none appear to have been sold. Their small number is the result of Vermeer's deliberate, methodical work habits, his comparatively short life, and the disappearance of many of his paintings during the period of obscurity following his death in Delft on December 15, 1675.

With a few exceptions, including some landscapes, street scenes, and portraits, Vermeer's output consisted of sunlit domestic interiors in which one or two figures are shown reading, writing, playing musical instruments, or engaged in a domestic task. These objectively observed, precisely executed genre paintings of Dutch life in the 17th century are characterized by a geometrical sense of order. He was a master of composition and in the representation of space.

Forgotten after his death and not rediscovered until the late 19th century, his reputation steadily increased thereafter. He is today considered one of the greatest Dutch painters. Fakes of his work were made for a time and sold to the Germans during World War II .

Click here for an article on Camara Obscura

 

Home

back to luci's site