Johannes Vermeer paintings

Vermeer paintings: the guide

Johannes Vermeer was born in Delft in 1632, the son of an innkeeper and art dealer, and he hardly ever left the town. He joined the painters’ guild at 21, married Catharina Bolnes, and raised a large family in his mother-in-law’s house while painting slowly, perhaps two or three pictures a year. Only about 35 paintings by him survive. He died in debt in 1675, at 43, and was almost forgotten for two centuries until a French critic rediscovered him in the 1860s and called him the Sphinx of Delft. Today each of his paintings is a museum’s treasure.

Vermeer’s most famous paintings

Girl with a Pearl Earring (about 1665)

A girl in a blue and yellow turban turns to look at us, lips parted, a huge pearl catching the light. Not a portrait of a known sitter but a tronie, a study of a face. Mauritshuis, The Hague. Read the story.

The Milkmaid (about 1658)

A kitchen maid pours milk in the light of a window. The bread, the basket and the wall sparkle with tiny dots of paint. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Read the story.

View of Delft (about 1660 to 1661)

His home town across the water, under a sky of moving clouds. Marcel Proust thought it the most beautiful painting in the world and gave it a famous “little patch of yellow wall”. Mauritshuis, The Hague. Read the story.

The Little Street (about 1658)

The brick fronts of two Delft houses, a woman sewing in a doorway and children playing on the pavement. Researchers have traced the real street. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Woman in Blue Reading a Letter (about 1663)

A woman in a blue jacket stands absorbed in a letter, the map on the wall hinting that the writer is far away. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Read the story.

The Art of Painting (about 1666 to 1668)

A painter, seen from behind, paints a model dressed as Clio, the muse of history, behind a heavy curtain pulled aside. Vermeer kept it until he died. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window (about 1657 to 1659)

A girl reads by an open window. A restoration finished in 2021 uncovered a large painting of Cupid on the wall behind her, painted over after Vermeer’s death. Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden.

The Concert (about 1664)

Three musicians in a quiet room. Stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990, it is still missing, the most valuable stolen painting in the world. Read the story.

The Astronomer (1668)

A scholar in a robe reaches for a celestial globe. The Nazis seized it from the Rothschild family during the war. Louvre, Paris. Read the story.

The Geographer (1669)

The same man, it seems, now with dividers and maps, looking up from his work towards the light. Städel Museum, Frankfurt. Read the story.

The Lacemaker (about 1669 to 1670)

A girl bent over her lace bobbins, with red and white threads spilling from a cushion. One of the smallest paintings in the Louvre, and one of the most visited. Louvre, Paris.

The Love Letter (about 1669 to 1670)

Seen through a dark doorway, a maid hands her mistress a letter. In 1971 it was stolen in Brussels and cut from its frame, and later recovered. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Read the story.

How Vermeer painted

Almost all of his scenes take place in the same few rooms, lit by a window on the left. He used natural ultramarine, ground from lapis lazuli and more expensive than gold, and finished highlights with tiny dots of light that make bread crust and pearls glitter. Whether he used a camera obscura to study light is still debated. What is certain is the stillness: nothing happens, and that is why people stand in front of his paintings for so long.

Where to see Vermeer paintings

• Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: The Milkmaid, The Little Street, Woman in Blue Reading a Letter and The Love Letter.
• Mauritshuis, The Hague: Girl with a Pearl Earring and View of Delft.
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: five Vermeers, more than any other museum, and three more at the Frick Collection.
• Louvre, Paris: The Lacemaker and The Astronomer.
• Vienna, Dresden, Frankfurt, London, Dublin and Washington hold the rest.

Vermeer died in 1675, so his paintings are in the public domain. Every painting on this page can be ordered as a hand-painted oil reproduction on canvas, in the size you choose. For more of the stories, read our guide to Vermeer’s famous paintings.