The study of ancient art reveals an enormous number of meritorious artists, honored by their contemporaries, yet almost unknown today. Art history, in its synthesis, retains only a limited number of figures, plunging the others into a shadow that deepens with time. This is the case of Johannes Vermeer, whose life we will endeavor to retrace.

Fame and Oblivion of a Master

Anyone who has delved into the study of ancient art, searched old archives, leafed through the account books of princes, cities, or states, or perused the rolls of corporations and academy lists, has rarely been able to resist a movement of astonishment, followed by concern and unease. This reaction arises from the revelation of an enormous number of artists of all stations, people of probable merit, of certain value, honored by their peers, esteemed by their contemporaries, and often even distinguished by princes or kings, who are today almost unknown to us.

These talented men, whose names have reached us accidentally, tell us nothing, for we have not the slightest notion of the qualities or defects that might have characterized their works. Indeed, a singular phenomenon occurs in all schools. Art history, after a relatively very short time, synthesizes itself. The luminous rays it projects now only fall upon a limited number of specially favored figures; the others remain plunged into an ever-deepening shadow, which each passing year renders more obscure.

Even more regrettable, the works of these unfortunates suffer the same fate as their names. They gradually disappear from circulation, and when they are not brutally destroyed, they are distorted. They change labels and are attributed to other, more highly rated artists. The observation of this mischief is not new.

Chevalier de Burtin wrote in 1808:

No one is unaware that by erasing names, a vile maneuver has already plunged into oblivion the memory of many an excellent old artist whose traces are no longer, or almost no longer, found, except in the works of biographers, who have transmitted to us the just praises that many painters, whose works are unknown today, deserved from their contemporaries (among so many illustrious competitors).1