Johannes Vermeer

Johannes Vermeer was a Dutch painter active in Delft and renowned for carefully composed interior scenes, subtle light and restrained domestic drama. He produced relatively few known paintings, struggled financially late in life and was only widely rediscovered as a major artist in the nineteenth century.

In Tracy Chevalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, in 1660s Delft, sixteen-year-old Griet becomes a servant in the household of Johannes Vermeer after her father is blinded in an accident.