caption movement death_date death_place birth_place imagesize training nationality field birth_date image article_title name bgcolour
detail 1656 -rrb- , considered to be a self portrait by of vermeer . the painting '' the procuress '' -lrb- dutch golden age 15 december 1675 delft , dutch republic delft , dutch republic 200px carel fabritius ? dutch painting 31 october 1632 cropped version of jan vermeer van delft 002.jpg johannes vermeer
 johannes vermeer #eedd 83
johannes vermeer

johannes , jan or johan vermeer -lrb- ; ; 1632 -- december 1675 -rrb- was a dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life .
vermeer was a moderately successful provincial genre painter in his lifetime .
he evidently was not wealthy , leaving his wife and children in debt at his death , perhaps because he produced relatively few paintings .
vermeer worked slowly and with great care , and frequently used very expensive pigments .
he is particularly renowned for his masterly treatment and use of light in his work .
vermeer painted mostly domestic interior scenes .
`` almost all his paintings are apparently set in two smallish rooms in his house in delft ; they show the same furniture and decorations in various arrangements and they often portray the same people , mostly women . ''
he was recognized during his lifetime in delft and the hague , but his modest celebrity gave way to obscurity after his death .
he was barely mentioned in arnold houbraken 's major source book on 17th-century dutch painting -lrb- `` grand theatre of dutch painters and women artists '' -rrb- , and was thus omitted from subsequent surveys of dutch art for nearly two centuries .
in the 19th century , vermeer was rediscovered by gustav friedrich waagen and théophile thoré-bürger , who published an essay attributing 66 pictures to him , although only 34 paintings are universally attributed to him today .
since that time , vermeer 's reputation has grown , and he is now acknowledged as one of the greatest painters of the dutch golden age .
