Johannes Vermeer Timeline

On 29 December 1653, Vermeer became a member of the Guild of Saint Luke, a trade association for painters.

In 1654, a terrible explosion, known as the Delft Thunderclap, occurred at a gunpowder store and destroyed a large section of the city of Delft.

Image source: Delft

In 1662, Vermeer was elected head of the guild, evidence that he was considered an established craftsman among his peers.

Vermeer was reelected head of the Guild of Saint Luke in 1663, confirming his standing among his fellow craftsmen.

In 1663, Balthasar de Monconys visited Vermeer to see some of his work, but Vermeer had no paintings to show.

Image source: Balthasar de Monconys

There is some speculation that Carel Fabritius may have been Vermeer's teacher, based upon a controversial interpretation of a text written in 1668 by printer Arnold Bon.

Image source: Carel Fabritius

Vermeer was reelected head of the guild in 1670 and again in 1671, further evidence of his established reputation among his peers.

Image source: Guild of Saint Luke

In 1671, Gerrit van Uylenburgh organized the auction of Gerrit Reynst's collection and offered 13 paintings and some sculptures to Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg.

In 1672, a severe economic downturn known as the Rampjaar struck the Dutch Republic after French troops led by Louis XIV invaded the country from the south during the Franco-Dutch War, leading to Vermeer's evident financial breakdown.

Image source: Rampjaar

In 1674, Vermeer was listed as a member of the civic guards in Delft.

In the summer of 1675, Vermeer borrowed 1,000 guilders in Amsterdam from Jacob Romboutsz, an Amsterdam silk trader, using his mother-in-law's property as a surety.

One of only three paintings dated by the artist himself, The Procuress (1656; Gemäldegalerie, Dresden) is one of Vermeer's earliest known works.

Image source: The Procuress (Vermeer)

One of only three paintings Vermeer dated himself, The Astronomer (1668) now hangs in the Musée du Louvre in Paris.

Image source: The Astronomer

One of only three paintings dated by the artist, The Geographer (1669) is held at the Städelsches Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt.

Image source: Geographer

Made between 1670 and 1672, The Allegory of Faith placed less emphasis on naturalistic concerns and more on symbolic religious applications, including the sacrament of the Eucharist.

Image source: The Allegory of Faith

Vermeer was barely mentioned in Arnold Houbraken's major source book on 17th-century Dutch painting (Grand Theatre of Dutch Painters and Women Artists, published 1718), and as a result was omitted from subsequent surveys of Dutch art for nearly two centuries.

Image source: Arnold Houbraken

Research by Théophile Thoré-Bürger culminated in the publication of his catalogue raisonné of Vermeer's works in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts in 1866. In the 19th century he and Gustav Friedrich Waagen rediscovered Vermeer, with Thoré-Bürger attributing 66 works to him, though only 34 are universally attributed today. Thoré-Bürger called him 'The Sphinx of Delft'.

Image source: Théophile Thoré-Bürger

In the 20th century, Vermeer's admirers included Salvador Dalí, who painted his own version of The Lacemaker (on commission from collector Robert Lehman), pitted large copies of the original against a rhinoceros in surrealist experiments, and celebrated the master in The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used As a Table, 1934.

Image source: Salvador Dalí

John Michael Montias added details on Vermeer's family from the city archives of Delft in his Artists and Artisans in Delft: A Socio-Economic Study of the Seventeenth Century (1982).

In 2001, British artist David Hockney published Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters, arguing that Vermeer used optics—curved mirrors, camera obscura, and camera lucida—to achieve precise positioning in compositions.

Image source: Hockney–Falco thesis

Philip Steadman published Vermeer's Camera: Uncovering the Truth behind the Masterpieces in 2001, specifically claiming that Vermeer had used a camera obscura to create his paintings.

Image source: Johannes Vermeer

In 2008, American entrepreneur Tim Jenison developed the theory that Vermeer had used a camera obscura along with a 'comparator mirror', similar in concept to a camera lucida but simpler, making it easy to match colour values.

Vermeer's The Concert was stolen during the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft in 1990 and remains unrecovered.

Image source: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft

Tracy Chevalier's novel Girl with a Pearl Earring (1999) presents a fictional account of Vermeer's creation of the famous painting and his relationship with an equally fictional model.

Image source: Girl with a Pearl Earring (novel)

The 2003 film adaptation of Tracy Chevalier's novel presented a fictional account of Vermeer's creation of the famous painting and his relationship with the equally fictional model.

Image source: Girl with a Pearl Earring (film)

Jenison spent five years testing his theory by re-creating The Music Lesson using his tools, a process captured in the 2013 documentary film Tim's Vermeer.

Image source: Tim's Vermeer

To mark the 26th anniversary of the opening of an exhibition at Washington, DC's National Gallery of Art featuring Vermeer's work, Google honored Vermeer with a Google Doodle on 12 November 2021.

Image source: Google Doodle

A 2023 exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam featured 28 of Vermeer's works, the most ever shown together. Its curators also identified Maria de Knuijt as Vermeer's main patron because of her long-standing and supportive relationship with the artist.

Image source: Rijksmuseum

Also released in 2023 was another movie about the exhibition at the Rijksmuseum: Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition.