Paintings of Vermeer in Great Collections

The Frick Collection was founded by Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919), the Pittsburgh coke and steel industrialist.

At his death, Mr. Frick bequeathed his New York residence and the most outstanding of his many artworks to establish a public gallery for the purpose of "encouraging and developing the study of the fine arts."

 The Frick Collection now houses a permanent collection of more than 1,100 works of art from the Renaissance to the late nineteenth century.

In Henry Frick's day, Rembrandt was the most highly regarded Dutch Old Master. Today, Vermeer holds that place. This small picture presents the familiar components of a classic Vermeer: a man and a woman observed sharing a moment alone in a comfortable interior flooded with golden light.

Music-making, a recurring subject in Vermeer’s interior scenes, was associated in the 17th century with courtship. 

The Rijksmuseum is a Dutch national museum dedicated to arts and history in Amsterdam. It was founded in The Hague in 1800 and moved to Amsterdam in 1808. The current main building was designed by Pierre Cuypers and first opened in 1885.

The museum has on display 8,000 objects of art and history, from their total collection of 1 million objects from the years 1200–2000, among which are some masterpieces by Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Johannes Vermeer.

The museum also has a small Asian collection, which is on display in the Asian pavilion.

The Little Street, also known as View of Houses in Delft, this is the only known outdoor scene by Vermeer of this type: a quiet street with only a few figures. 

A richly clad woman has momentarily ceased her music-making to read a letter that has just been handed to her by a servant girl.

The Milkmaid is one of Vermeer’s best-known paintings. In this work, he once again captures a scene of everyday life. 

In a quiet moment, a young woman stands, engrossed in reading a letter. It is morning, and she is still wearing her blue night robe. 

A girl is seated holding a guitar. She wears a cream gown and a yellow coat trimmed with fur. Like almost all Vermeer’s paintings, The Guitar Player is apparently in a room in his house in Delft.

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) was a Dutch draughtsman, painter, and printmaker. This self-portrait was undertaken towards the end of his life. 

Frans Hals the Elder (c. 1582–1666) was a Dutch portrait painter who lived and worked in Haarlem. He is notable for his loose brushwork, and he helped introduce this lively style of painting into Dutch art.

Located in the Netherlands, the Mauritshuis is home to the best of Dutch painting from the Golden Age, which roughly spanned the 17th century. The compact, yet world-renowned collection, is situated in the heart of The Hague, right next to the government centre. 

Masterpieces such as Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp by Rembrandt, The Goldfinch by Fabritius and The Bull by Potter are on permanent display in the museum’s intimate rooms.

Girl with a Pearl Earring is Vermeer’s most famous painting. It is not a portrait, but a ‘tronie’ – a painting of an imaginary figure. 

Gerard Ter Borch made paintings of people absorbed in what they are doing. This woman writing a letter is the first of a whole series and was an example for other artists, like Vermeer. 

In this painting by Gerard Ter Borch, a mother is carefully combing her child’s hair in search of lice. The boy is undergoing the inspection stoically.