The masters behind our paintings
Johannes Vermeer – the master of quiet light
baptised 31 October 1632, Delft · buried 15 December 1675, Delft
He painted slowly, rarely and almost only in two rooms of his house in Delft. After his death he was forgotten for two centuries – today people from all over the world queue for his pictures.
A quiet life in Delft
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An inn full of pictures
Johannes Vermeer is baptised in Delft in October 1632. His father is a silk weaver, art dealer and innkeeper – pictures come and go at the “Mechelen” inn on the market square. Where and with whom the son learned to paint, nobody knows for sure.
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Marriage and guild
In 1653 he marries the Catholic Catharina Bolnes and joins the Guild of Saint Luke, the painters' guild, the same year. Later he is elected to its board several times. The couple has more than a dozen children and lives in the house of his mother-in-law Maria Thins.
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Two rooms, one window
Vermeer paints almost always the same place: a room, light from the left through a window, a woman at a quiet task. He works slowly, only two or three pictures a year. Only about 35 survive.
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Blue from a gemstone
For his glowing blue Vermeer uses genuine ultramarine, made from the semi-precious stone lapis lazuli and more expensive than gold. Whether he used a camera obscura for his effects of light is still debated – it has never been proven.
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The disaster year
In 1672 France invades the Netherlands; the Dutch call it the “disaster year”. The art market collapses and Vermeer hardly sells any pictures. He dies at the end of 1675, deep in debt; his widow has to settle with the creditors in court.
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Two centuries forgotten
After his death Vermeer is almost completely forgotten, and some of his pictures are attributed to other painters. Only in the 1860s does the French critic Théophile Thoré-Bürger make him famous again – he calls him the “Sphinx of Delft”.
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World fame
Today Vermeer is considered one of the greatest painters of the Golden Age. A novel and a film turn the “Girl with a Pearl Earring” into a pop star. And one of his pictures, “The Concert”, has been missing since an art theft in Boston in 1990.
His most famous paintings
Five of only about 35 pictures – painted in Delft, today in The Hague, Amsterdam and Vienna.
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View of Delft His home town in the light after the rain – Marcel Proust called it the most beautiful painting in the world. -
The Little Street A slice of everyday life in Delft – in 2015 researchers located the house in the Vlamingstraat. -
The Milkmaid A thin stream of milk, a piece of bread, lots of light – and ultramarine on the apron. -
The Art of Painting A painter, a model, a map: Vermeer's declaration of love to painting. -
Girl with a Pearl Earring Not the portrait of a particular woman but a “tronie” – a head with expression and costume.
The story behind the picture
The pearl that isn't there
Nobody knows who the girl was. Vermeer did not paint a client but a “tronie”: a face with an exotic turban, a glance over the shoulder and slightly parted lips.
In 1881 the picture is auctioned in The Hague – for two guilders and thirty cents. The buyer recognises the treasure and later bequeaths it to the Mauritshuis, where it still hangs today.
In a study begun in 2018 researchers discovered fine eyelashes and an originally green curtain in the background. And the pearl? It is an illusion made of a few touches of white paint – no outline, no hook on the ear. That very magic is what we paint for your pet.
Your pet with a pearl earring
We keep Vermeer's composition – turban, pearl, glance over the shoulder – and put your pet in the girl's place. Fur, markings and eyes come from your photo. The preview is free.
Images of the original paintings: public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.