Johannes Vermeer

Known for: Girl with a Pearl Earring (c.1665); Dutch domestic interior painting

Johannes Vermeer produced approximately 37 paintings, almost all of them depicting domestic interiors in Delft flooded with cool, north-facing light from a single window. Working slowly — he may have produced only two or three paintings a year — he achieved an optical precision in representing the behavior of light on surfaces that no contemporary could match and that subsequent painters have cited as a primary reference. Girl with a Pearl Earring (c.1665) and The Milkmaid (c.1657–58) are among the most visited paintings in Dutch museums.