A Timeline of Vermeer's Life - 1641–1652 Childhood and Adolescence

Modern art aficionados should recognize that the art world of the twentieth century bears little resemblance to the era of Johannes Vermeer. In the seventeenth century, the concept of private art galleries, eagerly anticipated international exhibitions, critical art reviews in newspapers, and extensive art commentary was virtually non-existent. Dutch painters, largely viewing themselves as mere skilled craftsmen, rarely documented their thoughts about themselves or their work. The general Dutch populace was not acutely aware of their living amidst the 'Golden Age of Dutch Painting,' and the way art was appreciated and discussed then differs markedly from our modern perspectives.

The primary historical records concerning seventeenth-century Dutch artists, including Vermeer, are predominantly legal and transactional documents — notarial depositions, business records, and municipal clerical entries. These documents often present an individual's life from a rather adversarial viewpoint, lacking a comprehensive or balanced portrayal of their personal and professional experiences. For instance, significant life events like Vermeer's baptism, marriage, and burial are documented in the vellum-bound registers of Delft's Old and New Churches, but these only offer sparse glimpses into his life.

Regarding Vermeer's early years, the trail goes cold after his baptism in 1632 until he marries Catharina Bolnes in 1653. While subsequent archival records don't reveal much about Vermeer's personality, they do provide a clear picture of his family background and social environment.

The cornerstone of our understanding of Vermeer's life and times is John Michael Montias' seminal work, Vermeer and His Milieu: A Web of Social History. This book is a must-read for anyone intrigued by Vermeer or the artistic context of his time, as it forms the bedrock of all subsequent research on the artist. Montias embarked on an exploratory journey into the life of this enigmatic figure, unearthing surprising details: Vermeer's grandfather was a convicted counterfeiter, his grandmother ran illicit lotteries, and Vermeer himself fathered thirteen children, dying penniless at forty-three. These revelations underscore the fact that much remains to be discovered about Vermeer, a fascinating artist shrouded in mystery.

Anthony Bailey's Vermeer: A View of Delft is another vibrant addition to literature on the Dutch master, offering an accessible and engaging narrative. Bailey skillfully intertwines the life stories of Vermeer's contemporaries, including the renowned scientist Anton Van Leeuwenhoek, and delves into Vermeer's possible Catholic faith in a predominantly Protestant Netherlands. His approach of structuring the book around individual paintings adds a unique dimension, allowing readers to journey through Vermeer's life and times.

Vermeer and His Milieu: A Web of Social History
John Michael Montias
1989

Vermeer: A View of Delft
Anthony Bailey
2001

In order to ensure reasonable loading time, this timeline has been divided into five sections.

1641: Vermeer's Age, 9

VERMEER'S LIFE & ART	Reynier Janz. Vos, Vermeer's hard-working father, buys a large, heavily mortgaged house and inn known for the past hundred years as "Mechelen," after the Brabant city, for 2,700 guilders on the Grote Markt (Great Market), in Delft. The establisment has seven hearths. The interest amounted to almost as much as the rent for the Flying Fox. The advantage, however, was the inn's superior location. From the records we have, it seems that Reynier Janz.'s customers in Mechelen were mainly drawn from the respectable middle classes: a captain's wife, a military contractor (an acquaintance of his stepbrother Reynier Baltens), and a doctor. Undoubtedly, Reynier had risen in the word since the street brawling of his earlier years Presumably ,the location of Mechelen provided a natural meeting place for artists and collectors. The landlord is in an ideal position to act as middleman between the painters and their clients. Most likely, he buys pictures speculatively and displays them on the walls in the hope of making a sale at some future date. Nonetheless, Vermeer's father's endeavor to juggle the roles of innkeeper and art dealer apparently did not lead to wealth. This could have been due to his customers' delinquencies or their need for prodding to settle their tabs—as in 1651, Reynier van Heuckelom was in arrears by 126 guilders for room and board, an amount surpassing the yearly interest on the inn's mortgage Three days before the acquisition of Mechelen by Vermeer's father, Jan Thins, the brother of Vermeer's future mother-in-law Maria Thins, buys a house on the Oude Langendijk in Delft three days earlier. In this house Vermeer will keep his studio and spend much of his adult life.
DUTCH PAINTING	*Agatha Bas* Rembrandt van Rijn Working in Amsterdam, Rembrandt van RIjn becomes internationally know as a portrait painter. Frans Hals paints The Governors of Saint Elizabeth Hospital. Hals is the greatest seventeenth-century portraitist of the Dutch bourgeoisie working in Haarlem, where he spends practically all his life. Hals develops a technique that was close to impressionism in its looseness, and he paints with increasing freedom as he grows older.
EUROPEAN PAINTING & ARCHITECTURE	*Harbor with Ruins* Salvator Rosa 1640–1643 Dec. 9, Anthony "Antoon" van Dyck, dies. Van Dyck's extraordinary talent is recognized immediately by Rubens where he serves his brief apprenticeship. Although he paints religious scenes, he was and still is justly appreciated for his extremely refined portraits. Nicolas Poussin, returning to Rome after two years in Paris, works mainly for a group of middle-class patrons. The Italian painter Domenichino dies in Naples.
MUSIC	Monteverdi composes Il Ritono d Ulisse in patria, opera.
LITERATURE	John Evelyn writes his Diary. Evelyn is at the center of the intellectual, social, political and ecclesiastical world of his day and his Diary has long been recognized as the most extensive and historically informative record of one of the key periods in English history.
SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHY
HISTORY	Jun. 6, Spain looses Portugal.

1642: Vermeer's Age, 10

VERMEER'S LIFE & ART	Nothing is known of the life of Vermeer in this year.
DUTCH PAINTING	*Windmill by a River* Jan van Goyen Van Goyen's landscapes are immensely popular His style is widely imitated in his own days. He is known to have painted more than a more a thousand pictures. Rembrandt paints The Night Watch. Emmanuel de Witte is admitted to the Guild of Saint Luke of Delft where he will reside until 1651.
EUROPEAN PAINTING & ARCHITECTURE	Jusepe the Clubfooted Boy Ribera Le Vau, the French royal architect, builds the Hotel Lambert on the Ile of Saint Louis. José (or Jusepe) de Ribera, Spanish painter, etcher and draughtsman, is active for all his known career in Italy where he is called Lo Spagnoletto (the Little Spaniard). Little is known of his life before he settles in Naples (at the time a Spanish possession) in 1616. Naples is then one of the principal centers of the Caravaggesque style, and Ribera is often described as one of Caravaggio's followers.
MUSIC	Sept. 23, Giovanni Maria Bononcini, composer, is born. Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea is given at Europe's second public opera house, Teatro di Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice. Marco da Gagliano, Italian composer, dies.
LITERATURE
SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHY	Isaac Newton (d.1727), English physicist, mathematician and scientist, is born in Woolsthorpe (Grantham), Lincolnshire, England. He enunciates the laws of motion and the law of gravity. Descartes publishes Meditationes de prima philosophia, in quibus Dei Existentia et animae humanae a corpore distinctio demonstrantur. January 8, Astronomer Galileo Galilei dies in Arcetri, Italy.
HISTORY	January 4, King Charles I attacks the English parliament with 400 soldiers. Feb. 25, Dutch settlers slaughter lower Hudson Valley Indians in New Netherlands, North America, who seek refuge from the Mohawk. Aug. 22, Civil war in England begins as Charles I declares war on the Puritan Parliament at Nottingham. Charles I goes to the House of Commons in order to arrest some of its members buts is refused entry. From this point on no monarch is allowed entry. Nov. 13, Battle at Turnham Green, London: King Charles I vs. English parliament. Dec. 13, Dutch navigator and explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman arrives in present-day New Zealand. He flees after Maori cannibals feast on the "friendship party" he sends ashore. Period of English civil wars. Pope Urban VIII issues bull Universa per Orbem, reducing annual feast days to 32. At an instigation of Jesuits he also condemns Jansen's Augustinus. John Evyln, English diarist visits the Tomb of William the Silent in the Nieuwe Kerk, one of the principal tourist attractions of Delft.

1643 Vermeer's Age, 11

VERMEER'S LIFE & ART	Nothing is known of Vermeer's life in this year.
DUTCH PAINTING	Willem van Aelst, a pupil of his uncle Ever van Aelst, is admitted to the Guild of Saint Luke in Delft. He is an excellent draughtsman and vivid colorist. Van Aelst's still-lives are distinguishable from those of other Dutch painters in that they are frequently littered with bric-á-brac of Renaissance antiquarianism.
EUROPEAN PAINTING & ARCHITECTURE	Holy Family Resting on the Flight to Egypt Pietro da Cortona c. 1643
MUSIC	Mar. 1, Girolamo Frescobaldi (59), Italian composer, organist, dies. Nov. 29, Claudio Giovanni Monteverdi (76), Italian composer (L'Arianna), dies. His importance as a component of the new concerted music characteristic of the early Baroque Era is unquestioned, as is his pre-eminence in the development of the new form of opera that sprang from the combination of music and art in Italian monody, the solo singing/setting of a dramatically conceived melody,. His harmonic invention, freedom and richness of his orchestral accomplishments, as well as the increased manual skill, give him a place of the highest importance in the history of music, and, in particular, of opera.
LITERATURE
SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHY
HISTORY	May 14, Louis XIV becomes King of France at age 4 upon the death of his father, Louis XIII. May 18, Queen Anne, the widow of Louis XIII, is granted sole and absolute power as regent by the Paris parliament, overriding the late king's will. May 19, French army destroys the Spanish army at the Battle at Rocroi - Allersheim in France.

1644 Vermeer's Age, 12

VERMEER'S LIFE & ART	Nothing is known of Vermeer's life in this year.
DUTCH PAINTING
EUROPEAN PAINTING & ARCHITECTURE	Diego de Acedo (El Primo) Diego Velázquez c. 1645 Diego Velázquez paints the portrait King Philip IV of Spain. Velázquez is considered the country's greatest baroque artist. He, together with Francisco de Goya and El Greco, form the great triumvirate of Spanish painting.
MUSIC	Oct. 1, Jean Rousseau, composer, is born. Oct. 1, Alessandro Stradella, Italian violinist and composer, is born. Antonio Stradivari Antonio Stradivari (d.1737), violin maker, is born at Cremona. From 1698 to 1725 Stradivari produces his finest instruments and carries his manufacture to the highest possible finish: the instruments' outlines are designed with taste and purity, the wood is rich and carefully selected, the arching falls off in gentle and regular curves, the scroll is carved with great perfection, and the varnish is fine and supple. Stradivari fixes the exact shape and position of the sound-holes, and his model is copied by most violin makers since his time. He definitively settles on the shape and details of the bridge, which cannot be altered in the slightest degree without in some way injuring the tone of the instrument. The only essential part of the violin which has had to be changed since Stradivari's time is the bass-bar. Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, German composer, is born.
LITERATURE	Cesare Ripa's Iconologia is published in Dutch translation. Vermeer likely consults it for the choice of subject matter in The Art of Painting and the Allegory of Faith.
SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHY	Principia Philosophiae by Rene Descartes is published in Amsterdam. John Milton writes Areopagitica, in defense of the freedom of the press. Roger Williams writes Queries of Highest Consideration, separation of Church and State.
HISTORY	July 2, Lord Cromwell crushes the Royalists at the Battle of Marston Moor near York, England. Cromwell came from minor gentry in Huntingdon and had served in Parliament before the wars, during which he commands the Ironsides, a cavalry regiment famous for its discipline and tenacity. Although he had no previous military experience, he shows courage and tactical brilliance, particularly at the Battle of Marston Moor. Pope Innocent X is elected Pope. He is from the noble Roman Pamphili family.

1645 Vermeer's Age, 13

VERMEER'S LIFE & ART	Nothing is known of Vermeer's life in this year.
DUTCH PAINTING	Self-Portrait Carel Fabritius c. 1645 *Vase of Flowers* Jan Davidsz. de Heem c. 1645 Carel Fabritius (1622–1654) paints a self portrait. Fabritius is Rembrandt's most talented pupil, and once thought to have been Vermeer's master while he lived in Delft. Competition among flower painters like De Heem is so fierce that they rarely paint other subjects. In 1636 De Heem moves to Antwerp, becomes a citizen of that city in 1637, and spends most of his highly productive life there. The paintings he executes in Flanders are those for which he is most renowned. They are very different in spirit from his earlier works. He paints splendid flower pieces and large compositions of exquisitely laid tables which breathe all the opulent exuberance of Flemish Baroque painting. His work forms a link between the Dutch and Flemish still life traditions and he is claimed by both schools. The Dordrecht landscape artist Aelbert Cuyp borrows warm light and hilly scenery from Italy. Cuyp is one of the foremost landscape painters of the Dutch golden age and is particularly known for evocative representations of the Dutch countryside drenched in an atmospheric golden light. He also paints a number of biblical and mythological pictures as well as an occasional portrait. An exceptional draftsman, he made a number of sensitive drawings of the countryside, many of which serve as models for his paintings. Quiet in atmosphere and grand in breath, Cuyp's paintings and drawings are enormously appealing to the English aristocracy of the eighteenth century.
EUROPEAN PAINTING & ARCHITECTURE	*The Young Beggar* Francisco Murillo c. 1645 Murillo receives commissions from religious institutions in Sevillle. Murillo's many religious paintings emphasize the peaceful, joyous aspects of spiritual life. He is the first Spanish painter to achieve renown throughout Europe, particularly in England. Here his influence can be seen in the paintings of Sir Joshua Reynolds and John Constable, who paint during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. French painter Georges de La Tour paints The Lamentation over Saint Sebastian. Like most of his works, the scene is illuminated by candlelight, which gives clarity of line and volume. Salvator Rosa brings to Italian painting a new element of dark romanticism.
MUSIC	Lully is appointed violinist at French court. Cardinal Mazarin calls a Venetian opera company to Paris.
LITERATURE
SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHY
HISTORY	*Hugo Grotius* Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt 1631 Aug. 28, Hugo Grotius, Dutch jurist and politician, dies. One of the pioneering natural rights theorists of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Grotius defines natural law as a perceptive judgment in which things are good or bad by their own nature. This is a break from Calvinist ideals, in that God is no longer the only source of ethical qualities. Those things that are by themselves good are associated with the nature of man.

1646 Vermeer's Age, 14

VERMEER'S LIFE & ART	Nothing is known of Vermeer's life in this year.
DUTCH PAINTING	Peasant Family with Animals Paulus Potter 1646 Paulus Potter enters the Guild of Saint Luke in Delft. When Potter dies of tuberculosis. Before he is thirty years old, he has already profoundly influenced the way animals are depicted in European art. Potter creates "portraits" of animals, making them the prime focal point of his compositions, not just a backdrop for human action. The precocious son of a painter, his first dated work is from 1640. afterward, he enters the Delft's Guild of Saint Luke in 1646 and later moves to The Hague. He is said to have wandered the Dutch countryside, sketchbook in hand, equally sensitive to how farm animals behave at different times of day and to light's vicissitudes from morning to dusk.
EUROPEAN PAINTING & ARCHITECTURE	Jules Hardouin Mansart, French architect, is born. He becomes the chief architectural director for Louis XIV.
MUSIC	Johann Stobaeus, German composer, dies. Johann Theile, German singer and composer, is born.
LITERATURE
SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHY	Jul. 1, Gottfried Von Leibniz, German philosopher and mathematician, is born.
HISTORY

1647 Vermeer's Age, 15

VERMEER'S LIFE & ART	Vermeer's sister, Gertruy, marries Antony van der Wiel, a Delft ebony worker and frame-maker. Gertruy is twenty-seven and her brother Johannes is fifteen. The married couple goes to live in a house called "De Molen" in the Vlamingstraat, east of the Nieuwe Kerk Johannes Vermeer likely began his mandatory apprenticeship, typically lasting between four to six years, in the late 1640s under a painting master. This assumption is based on his admission to the Delft guild in 1653. However, the specific details of his apprenticeship, including his mentor and location of study, remain unknown, as there are no surviving records from this period indicating his whereabouts. Various masters and cities have been speculated upon, with some conjecturing that Vermeer might have studied in Amsterdam with either Jacob van Loo or Quellinus, considering the similarities between Vermeer's early works and those of these Amsterdam painters. Carel Fabritius, a noted pupil of Rembrandt, was active in Delft during this time. However, he had not been registered long enough to accept apprentices when Vermeer would have started his training. Leonaert Bramer, a family friend of the Vermeers, is another possible mentor mentioned by art historians, but Bramer's vibrant Italianate style contrasts with the more subdued nature of Vermeer's early works. The true circumstances of Vermeer's artistic training thus remain a topic of speculation and scholarly debate.
DUTCH PAINTING
EUROPEAN PAINTING & ARCHITECTURE	The Ecstasy of Saint Therese Gian Lorenzo Bernini 1647–1652 Diego Velázquez begins his painting Toilet of Venus.
MUSIC	L'Orfeo is produced in France. It was composed by Luigi Rossi who summoned to France by Cardinal Mazarin in order to cultivate the Italian operatic tradition in France and mate it with the court orchestra, Les Vingt-Quatre Vuiolons du Roi. Pelham Humfrey, English composer, is born
LITERATURE
SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHY	Nov. 8, Pierre Bayle, French-Dutch theologian, philosopher and writer, is born. He authors the Historical and Critical Dictionary. "If a historian were to relate truthfully all the crimes, weaknesses and disorders of mankind, his readers would take his work for satire rather than for history."
HISTORY	January 30, King Charles I is handed over to the English parliament. Mar. 14, 1647, the Treaty of Ulm is signed between the French and the Bavarians during the Thirty Years' War. In negotiations with the French, Maximilian I of Bavaria abandons his alliance with the Holy Roman emperor Ferdinand III through the Treaty of Ulm. In 1648 Bavaria returns to the side of the emperor. May 11, Peter Stuyvesant arrives in New Amsterdam to become governor. The one-legged professional soldier is sent from the Netherlands to head the Dutch trading colony at the southern end of Manhattan Island. Nov. 10, all Dutch-held area of New York is returned to English control by the treaty of Westminster. William II succeeds his father as stadtholder, which he dreams of transforming into a monarchy. In 1648 he is forced to sign peace with Spain.

1648 Vermeer' Ages, 16

VERMEER'S LIFE & ART	Vermeer continues his six year apprenticeship with an unknown master in an unknown city. Constantijn Huygens orders a virginal from Jean Couchet, a nephew of Johannes Ruckers, one of the most refined constructors of virginals at the time. This virginal most likely is similar to the one seen in Vermeer's painting of the 1660s, The Music Lesson.
DUTCH PAINTING	Jan Steen and Gabriel Metsu are founder members of the painter's guild in Leiden which breaks with the St Luke Guild dominated by artisans. Jacob van Ruisdael, perhaps the finest Dutch landscape painter, enters the painter's guild of Haarlem. He is known for his masterful compositions, meticulous draftsmanship, and thick impasto which lend a profound tranquility to his carefully chosen scenes. Though earlier Dutch artists used trees as decorative compositional devices, Ruisdael imbued them with forceful personalities. Similarly, the vast, clouded skies looming over low, distant horizons inject tension into his panoramic landscapes. In addition to making seven hundred paintings and one hundred drawings, Ruisdael receives a medical degree in 1676 and probably pursues a successful second career as a surgeon.
EUROPEAN PAINTING & ARCHITECTURE	*Holy Family on the Steps* Nicolas Poussin 1648 Antoine Le Nain dies. The works of the three Le Nain brothers, Louis, Antoine and Mathieu, are today considered under the surname of Le Nain. One of the themes for which the Le Nain brothers are famous is a genre scene without a specific narrative content representing a street musician surrounded by urchins. Louis Le Nain dies. Laurent la Hayre is one of the twelve founding professors of the French academy of painting and sculpture. Landscape painter Claude Lorrain paints his The Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba, notable for its use of light. Lorrain's idealized landscapes have a profound affect on art, garden design, and aesthetics of the time and for generations after.
MUSIC	Apr. 11, Matthaus Apelles von Lowenstern, composer, dies. Aria and recitative become two distinct entities in opera John Blow, English musician, is born Heinrich Schutz composes Musicalia ad chorum sacrum.
LITERATURE
SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHY
HISTORY	Oct. 24, The Peace of Westphalia ends the German Thirty Years War and effectively destroys the Holy Roman Empire. The Peace of Westphalia divides Pomerania, a historic region that once stretched from Stralsund to the Vistula along the Baltic Sea in north-central Europe, into two parts known as Hither Pomerania and Farther Pomerania. Hither Pomerania, the area west of the Oder River, is granted to Sweden. On the evening of June 5, fireworks and bonfires in all towns of the United Provinces celebrate victory for the Dutch in their war against Spain for independence. The ceremony is planned with a dramatic sense of timing. On another June 5 at 10 o'clock in the morning precisely 80 years earlier, the war had begun with the execution of two of Holland's first revolutionaries, Count of Egmont and Hoorn. Nov. 26, Pope Innocent X condemns the Peace of Westphalia. Jun. 4, The English army seizes King Charles I as a hostage.

1649 Vermeer's Age, 17

VERMEER'S LIFE & ART	Johannes Vermeer likely has begun his mandatory apprenticeship, which typically ranged from four to six years, in the late 1640s with a painting master. This is inferred from his admission to the Delft guild in 1653. However, specific details regarding his mentor or the location of his training are unknown due to the absence of records from that period. There is speculation among scholars that Vermeer might have trained in Amsterdam, suggested by the stylistic parallels in his early works to those of Amsterdam painters such as Van Loo or Quellinus. Carel Fabritius, a distinguished student of Rembrandt, was present in Delft around that time. Yet, at the onset of Vermeer's apprenticeship, Fabritius had not fulfilled the guild's requirement of being registered for two years before taking on apprentices. Another potential mentor, Leonaert Bramer, a family acquaintance of the Vermeers, is often considered by art historians. However, Bramer's dynamic Italianate style markedly differs from the more subdued tone of Vermeer's initial works. Consequently, the exact details of Vermeer's artistic training and influences during his formative years remain largely conjectural.
DUTCH PAINTING	René Descartes Frans Hals c. 1649 Gerrit ter Borch paints Philip IV of Spain.. Paulus Potter, known for his exquisite rendering of animals, moves to The Hague, where in the following year he marries Adriana, the daughter of the architect Claes van Balkeneynde. Jacob van Loo paints Diana and the Nymphs which may influence Vermeer's early paintings, Diana and Her Companions.
EUROPEAN PAINTING & ARCHITECTURE	*Pope Innocent X* Diego Velázquez c. 1650 David Teniers the Elder (b. 1582), Dutch painter, dies. Diego Velázquez paints Pope Innocent X portrait while in Rome. The painting is immediately praised as a masterpiece. The Pope is said to comment, "it is too real!" Salvator Rosa returns to Rome, where he spends the rest of his life. Nicola Poussin creates his painting Moses Striking the Rock.
MUSIC
LITERATURE
SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHY	Sept. 1, Descartes departs Amsterdam to go to Sweden on the invitation of Queen Kristina.
HISTORY	January 30, King Charles I of England, who ruled from 1625–1649, is beheaded for treason at Banqueting House, Whitehall, by the hangman Richard Brandon. He looses his capital trial by one vote, 68–67. "For the people, and I truly desire their liberty and freedom as much as anybody whomsoever, but I must tell you that their liberty and their freedom consists in having of government those laws by which their life and their goods may be most their own. It is not for having a share in government, sirs; that is nothing pertaining to them. A subject and a sovereign are clean different things." Dutch physician Isbrand de Diernerbrock publishes his study of the plague, De peste. René Descartes writes Les Passions de I'Ame. In Great Britain, English becomes the language of all legal documents in place of Latin.

1650 Vermeer's Age, 18

VERMEER'S LIFE & ART	Vermeer continues his six year apprenticeship with an unknown master in an unknown city.
DUTCH PAINTING	*Isabella Coymans* Frans Hals 1650–1652 Carel Fabritius, one of Rembrandt van Rijn's most promising pupils, arrives in Delft. He joins the Guild of Saint Luke two years later. Gerrit ter Borch begins to specialize in his exquisite interior genre scenes that will later influence Vermeer.
EUROPEAN PAINTING & ARCHITECTURE	Murillo paints The Holy Family with the Little Bird. Diego Velazquez paints the portrait, Juan de Pareja. Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (fountain of Four Rivers) in Rome's Piazza Navona is designed by baroque master Bernini.
MUSIC	Beginning of modern harmony; development of modulation. The overture as musical form emerges in two forms, Italian and French.
LITERATURE	Corneille writes Andromède, tragedy
SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHY	Feb. 1, René Descartes, philosopher, dies. Descartes is one of the most important Western philosophers of the past few centuries. During his lifetime, Descartes is equally famous as an original physicist, physiologist and mathematician. But it is as a highly original philosopher that he is most frequently read today. He attempts to orient philosophy in a fresh direction. His philosophy refuses to accept the Aristotelian and Scholastic traditions that dominate philosophical thought throughout the Medieval period and likewise attempts to fully integrate philosophy with the "new" sciences. Thus, Descartes changes the relationship between philosophy and theology making him a revolutionary figure.
HISTORY	Nov. 4, William III, Prince of Orange and King of England, is born. C. 1650 The mass production of glass bottles and the development of cork stoppers begins to make possible the controlled aging of wine. January 1, Charles II (Stuart) is crowned king of Scotland. In the 1650s the fork is introduced to the wealthy Dutch of New York. It becomes customary for these more affluent members of society to carry a personal knife and fork while traveling or dining at houses other than their own. Among the masses, however, the spoon remains the primary eating implement well into the eighteenth century.

1651 Vermeer's Age, 19

VERMEER'S LIFE & ART	During his six-year apprenticeship, Johannes Vermeer studied under an unidentified master, with the specific city of his training also remaining unknown. Between 1650 and 1651, Quillinus created a painting of Erasmus for the Amsterdam New Town Hall, bearing a notable resemblance to Vermeer's later work, "Christ in the House of Martha and Mary." Additionally, Jacob Van Loo, active in Amsterdam, produced Diana and Her Companions, a composition that may have influenced a similarly themed, large-scale work by Vermeer. While there are no direct records confirming Vermeer's presence in Amsterdam, these stylistic parallels in the works of Quillinus and Jacob van Loo suggest a potential connection and imply that Vermeer might have undertaken part of his studies in Amsterdam.
DUTCH PAINTING	Paulus Potter paints Landscape with Cows.
EUROPEAN PAINTING & ARCHITECTURE
MUSIC	Heinrich Albert, German composer, dies. The young King Louis XIV of France appears as a dancer in a court ballet.
LITERATURE
SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHY
HISTORY	Dutch settle at Cape of Good Hope. Sept. 3, Battle at Worcester. Oliver Cromwell destroys English royalists. Charles II leads the Scots Covenanters to a disastrous defeat at the battle of Worcester.

1652 Vermeer's Age, 20

VERMEER'S LIFE & ART	Vermeer continues his six year apprenticeship with an unknown master in an unknown city. On October 12, Reynier Janz Vos, Vermeer's father, is buried in Delft. Although Vermeer is mentioned four times between April 5-23, he is not referred to as a "schilder" (painter).
DUTCH PAINTING	*The View of Delft* Carel Fabritius 1652 Carel Fabritius is registered in the Guild of Saint Luke in Delft. He is Vermeer's elder by 10 years. Frans van Mieris, three years older than Vermeer, paints his Charlatan which may inspire Vermeer's Procuress.
EUROPEAN PAINTING & ARCHITECTURE
MUSIC	Gregorio Allegri, Italian tenor and composer, dies. The minuet comes into fashion at French court. First opera house is built in Vienna.
LITERATURE	Corneille writes Nicoméde, tragedy
SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHY	Imperial German Academy of Naturalists is founded at Schweinfurt (moves to Halle in 1878)
HISTORY	War breaks out between England and the United Provinces. May 29, English Admiral Robert Blake drives out the Dutch fleet under Lieutenant-Admiral Tromp.

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