Cropped version of Jan Vermeer van Delft 002

The following is a list of paintings by the

Dutch Golden Age painter Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history roughly spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) for Dutch independence. The new Dutch Republi ...

Johannes Vermeer Johannes Vermeer ( , , see below; also known as Jan Vermeer; October 1632 – 15 December 1675) was a Dutch Baroque Period painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. During his lifetime, he was a moderately succe ...

(1632–1675). After two or three early

history painting History painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than any artistic style or specific period. History paintings depict a moment in a narrative story, most often (but not exclusively) Greek and Roman mythology and Bible ...

s, he concentrated almost entirely on

genre works Genre art is the pictorial representation in any of various media of scenes or events from everyday life, such as markets, domestic settings, interiors, parties, inn scenes, work, and street scenes. Such representations (also called genre works, ...

, typically interiors with one or two figures. His popularity is due less to his subject matter than to the poetic manner in which he portrays his subjects and that he lived a very difficult life. Vermeer's paintings of the 1660s are generally more popular than his work from the 1670s: in the eyes of some, his later work is colder.Bonafoux, 124 Today, 34 paintings are firmly attributed to him, with question marks over a further three.Jonathan Janson
Essential Vermeer: complete Vermeer catalogue
accessed 16 June 2010 This compares to the 74 pictures attributed to him by a Theophile Burger in 1866. Vermeer's reputation increased greatly during the latter half of the 20th century, a period during which the number of paintings ascribed to him shrank greatly.Bonafoux, 144 This is partly because he has been one of the most widely forged artists, and many forgeries have now been identified. No drawings or preparatory paintings are known.Jon Boone

accessed 22 January 2010 Many Vermeer paintings are known by various names, and alternative names are noted below. Years of creation are only estimates for most of the paintings, and sources often give different, though not widely divergent, estimates. In addition to the known paintings listed below, historical documents seem to describe at least six other, lost, works.

Paintings by Johannes Vermeer

Disputed paintings

Lost works

Historical documents such as auction records suggest that Vermeer painted a number of other works, now presumably destroyed, lost to public view, or possibly wrongly attributed to other artists. While a list of these lost Vermeers must necessarily be tentative, it may include: * a

self-portrait A self-portrait is a representation of an artist that is drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by that artist. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century tha ...

* a painting of a man washing his hands * a second street scene (the first being ''

The Little Street ''The Little Street'' (''Het Straatje'') is a painting by the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, executed c. 1657-1658. It is exhibited at the Rijksmuseum of Amsterdam, and signed, below the window in the lower left-hand corner, "I V MEER". Painti ...

'') * a ''Visit to the Tomb'' – possibly Biblical * a mythological painting including

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousand ...

* a relatively early painting described as a 'face by Vermeer'

Footnotes

Sources

Bonafoux, Pascal Pascal Bonafoux (born 1949) is a French writer, novelist, art critic and art historian, a specialist in self-portraiture. He collaborates with various newspapers and magazines, he is the author of numerous essays dedicated to art and was a reside ...

. ''Vermeer''. New York: Konecky & Konecky, 1992. *Cant, Serena. ''Vermeer and His World 1632–1675'', Quercus Publishing Plc, 2009. *Wheelock, Arthur K. ''Vermeer: The Complete Works''. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1997. {{Lists of paintings

Vermeer Johannes Vermeer ( , , see below; also known as Jan Vermeer; October 1632 – 15 December 1675) was a Dutch Baroque Period painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. During his lifetime, he was a moderately succe ...