Vermeer [antikvár]

It has frequently been said—and with good reason-that Jan Vermeer of Delft was rediscovered in 1866 by the French critic Thore-Biirger and as a result it has been concluded that he was an unrecognized genius. Such a conclusion is totally unfounded, at least as far as his reputation during his lifetime is concerned. After his death he was forgotten, and these days that amounts to the same thing as non-recognition. Yet for anybody who wants to understand fully the artist and his work there is considerable interest in knowing the reason for the prolonged silence which surrounded him after he died. Very little is known about Vermeer's life. He was baptized in Delft in 1632. His father was a silk weaver, kept a tavern and also dealt in works of art. Vermeer's name crops up again on 5 April 1653, the date of his marriage. His wife (who bore him eleven children) came from a Catholic family and it is probable that he himself became a convert to Catholicism. In December 1653 he was admitted to the Guild of Saint Luke as a master craftsman. Later documents mention various commercial transactions, some of which seem to indicate financial difficulties, but none of them mention commissions or the title of any picture he painted. It seems that Vermeer was obliged to become a picture dealer to support his large family. Nevertheless he was not unknown as a painter to his contemporaries nor was his reputation confined to Delft. In 1662 and again in 1669, he was elected to the council of the Guild of Saint Luke, while in 1663 a noble French art collector made the journey from The Hague to Delft to meet Vermeer in his studio.