A Timeline of Vermeer's Life - 1641-1652
Childhood and Adolescence
Vermeer and his Milieu: A Web of Social History
by John Michael Montias
1991
available at AMAZON.COM
Modern art enthusiasts should always keep in mind the the twentieth-century art world has little in common with that of Johannes Vermeer. There existed no private art galleries, no queuing up to major international exhibits, no critical reviews in newspapers and painfully little art writing at all. Dutch painters wrote next to nothing about themselves or their work since most considered themselves little more than skilled artisans. The Dutch population at large was hardly aware of the "Golden Age of Dutch Painting" in the way we are today and art lovers spoke in different terms about the paintings we so treasure today.
The material evidence for seventeenth-century Dutch artists, including Johannes Vermeer, consists chiefly of depositions, business transactional and other documents drawn up by notaries and municipal clerks that force us to consider a person's life from a particular angle closer to his adversarial than to his amicable relations with his fellow men. Notorial depositions such as these give us a partial view of individual personalities not only because they emphasize the controversial side of their activities but because they are by and large woefully one-sided and incomplete. Only major events of Vermeer’s life, baptism, marriage, and burial-were recorded in the vellum-bound registers of the Old or the New Church which are preserved now in the Delft archives.
After Johannes Vermeer's baptism in 1632, little or nothing is known of the artist himself until he marries Catharina Bolnes in 1653. However, surviving archival from the following years documents provide an interesting picture and while little can be deduced about the artist's personality, his family background and immediate social milieu is fairly well defined.
John Michael Montias' invaluable Vermeer and his Milieu: A Web of Social History
Vermeer: A
View of Delft
Anthony Bailey
2001
Another colorful book which fleshes out in a highly readable fashion is Vermeer: A View of Delft
In order to insure reasonable loading time, the timeline has been divided into five sections which can be accessed from the upper left-hand corner of each section.
1641: Vermeer' Age, 9
| VERMEER'S LIFE & ART | Reynier Janz Vos, Vermeer's father, buys the house and inn called "Mechelen" on the Grote Markt, in Delft. The former Vos, who now called himself Vermeer, bought the building with 200 guilders in cash and two mortgages, one from a Haarlem brewer for 2,100 guilders and another for 400 guilders. |
| DUTCH PAINTING |
Working in Amsterdam, Rembrandt had become internationally know as a portrait painter. |
| EUROPEAN PAINTING & ARCHITECTURE |
Dec 9, Anthony "Antoon" van Dyck ( b. 1599), dies. Van Dyck's extraordinary talent was recognized immediately by Rubens where he served his brief apprenticeship Although Van Dyck painted religious scenes, he was and still is justly appreciated for his extremely refined portraits. Flemish. Nicolas Poussin, returning to Rome after two years in Paris, works mainly for a group of middle-class patrons. The Italian painter Domenichino (b. 1581) dies in Naples. |
| MUSIC | Monteverdi: "Il Ritono d Ulisse in patria,"opera. |
| LITERATURE | John Evelyn writes his "Diary" (1620- 1706). Evelyn was 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 most momentous periods in English history. |
| SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHY | |
| HISTORY | Jun 6, Spain lost Portugal |
1642: Vermeer' Age, 10
| VERMEER'S LIFE & ART | |
| DUTCH PAINTING |
Van Goyen's landscapes were immensely popular. He is known to have painted more than a more a thousand pictures. His style was widely imitated in his own days. Rembrandt paints "The Night Watch" Emmanuel de Witte (b. 1615) is admitted to the St. Luke's guild of Delft where he will reside until 1651. |
| EUROPEAN PAINTING & ARCHITECTURE |
Le Vau, the French royal architect, built the Hotel Lambert on the Ile of Saint Louis. José (or Jusepe) de Ribera, Spanish painter, etcher, and draughtsman, active for all his known career in Italy, where he was called 'Lo Spagnoletto' (the Little Spaniard). Little is known of his life before he settled in Naples (at the time a Spanish possession) in 1616. Naples was then one of the main centers of the Caravaggesque style, and Ribera is often described as one of Caravaggio's followers. |
| MUSIC | Sep 23, Giovanni Maria Bononcini, composer, was born. Monteverdi: "L'Incoronazione di Poppea," 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, was born in Woolsthorpe (Grantham), Lincolnshire, England. He enunciated the laws of motion and the law of gravity. Descartes published: “Meditationes de prima philosophia, in quibus Dei Existentia et animae humanae a corpore distinctio demonstrantur.” Jan 8, Astronomer Galileo Galilei (77) died in Arcetri, Italy. |
| HISTORY | Jan 4, King Charles I attacked the English parliament with 400 soldiers Feb 25, Dutch settlers slaughtered lower Hudson Valley Indians in New Netherlands, North America, who sought refuge from Mohawk Aug 22, Civil war in England began as Charles I declared war on the Puritan Parliament at Nottingham. Charles I went to the House of Commons to arrest some of its members and was refused entry. From this point on no monarch was allowed entry. Nov 13, Battle at Turnham Green, London: King Charles I vs. English parliament. Period of English civil wars. Pope Urban VIII issues bull "Universa per Orbem," reducing annual feast days to 32; at 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 principle tourist attractions of Delft. |
1643 Vermeer' Age, 11
| VERMEER'S LIFE & ART | |
| DUTCH PAINTING | Willem van Aelst pupil of his uncle Ever van Aelst is admitted to the St. Luke's guild in Delft. He was an excellent draughtsman and vivid colorist. Van Aelst's still-lives are distinguishable from those of other Dutch painters, being frequently littered with bric-á-brac of Renaissance antiquarianism. |
| EUROPEAN PAINTING & ARCHITECTURE |
|
| MUSIC | Mar 1, Girolamo Frescobaldi (59), Italian composer, organist, died. 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. His harmonic invention, the freedom and richness of his orchestral accomplishments, and the increased effectiveness in his hands, 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 became King of France at age 4 upon the death of his father, Louis XIII. |
1644 Vermeer' Age, 12
| VERMEER'S LIFE & ART | |
| DUTCH PAINTING | |
| EUROPEAN PAINTING & ARCHITECTURE |
|
| MUSIC | Oct 1, Jean Rousseau, composer, was born.  Antonio Stradivari Antonio Stradivari (d.1737), violin maker, was born at Cremona. From 1698 to 1725 Stradivari produced his finest instruments and carried his manufacture to the highest possible finish, the 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 fixed the exact shape and position of the sound-holes, and his model has been copied by most makers since his time. He definitively settled 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, born. |
| LITERATURE | Cesare Ripa's "Iconologia" is published in Dutch translation. Vermeer seems to have consulted it for his subject matter in "The Art of Painting." |
| SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHY | “Principia Philosophiae” by Rene Descartes was published in Amsterdam. John Milton: "Areopagitica," for the freedom of the press. Roger Williams: "Queries of Highest Consideration," separation of Church and State. |
| HISTORY | July 2, Lord Cromwell crushed 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 commanded the Ironsides, a cavalry regiment famous for its discipline and tenacity. Although he had had no previous military experience, he showed amazing courage and tactical brilliance, particularly at the Battle of Marston Moor Pope Innocent X was elected Pope. He was from the noble Roman Pamphili family. |
1645 Vermeer' Age, 13
| VERMEER'S LIFE & ART | |
| DUTCH PAINTING |
Carl Fabritius (1622-1654) paints a self portrait (see left). Fabritius was Rembrandt's most talented pupil. It was once thought to have been Vermeer's master while he lived in Delft. Competition among flower painters like De Heem was so fierce that they rarely painted other subjects. In 1636 he moved to Antwerp, became a citizen of that city in 1637, and spent most of his very productive life there. The paintings he did in Flanders are the ones for which he is most renowned and are very different in spirit from his earlier works: splendid flower pieces and large compositions of exquisitely laid tables which breathe all the opulent exuberance of Flemish Baroque painting. His work formed 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 Italian examples Aelbert Cuyp (1620 - 1691), one of the foremost landscape painters of the Dutch golden age, is particularly known for evocative representations of the Dutch countryside drenched in an atmospheric golden light. He also painted a number of biblical and mythological pictures as well as an occasional portrait. An exceptional draftsman, he created sensitive drawings of the countryside, many of which served as models for his paintings. Quiet in atmosphere and grand in appearance, Cuyp’s paintings and drawings had an enormous appeal for the English aristocracy of the later eighteenth century. |
| EUROPEAN PAINTING & ARCHITECTURE |
Murillo (1617-82 receives commissions from religious institutions in Sevillle. Murillo's many religious paintings emphasized the peaceful, joyous aspects of spiritual life. He was the first Spanish painter to achieve renown throughout Europe. In addition to the enormous popularity of his works in his native Seville, Murillo was much admired in other countries, particularly England. Here his influence can be seen in the paintings of Sir Joshua Reynolds and John Constable, who painted during the 18th and 19th centuries. French painter Georges de La Tour paints "The Lamentation over St. 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 made violinist at French court. Cardinal Mazarin calls a Venetian opera company to Paris. |
| LITERATURE | |
| SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHY | |
| HISTORY | 
Hugo Grotius |
1646 Vermeer' Age, 14
| VERMEER'S LIFE & ART | |
| DUTCH PAINTING |  Peasant Family with Animals Paulus Potter enters the Guild of St. Luke at Delft. When Potter died of tuberculosis before he was thirty years old, he had already profoundly influenced the way animals are depicted in European art. Potter created portraits of animals, making them his picture's focus, not just a backdrop for human action. The precocious son of a painter, his first dated work is from 1640. After he entered the Delft's Guild of Saint Luke in 1646 and later moved 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 |
1646-1707 Jules Hardouin Mansart, French architect. He became the chief architectural director for Louis XIV. |
| MUSIC | Johann Stobaeus, German composer, dies. Johann Theile, German singer and composer, born. |
| LITERATURE | |
| SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHY | Jul 1, Gottfried Von Leibniz (Leibnitz, d.1716), German philosopher and mathematician, was born. |
| HISTORY |
1647 Vermeer' Age, 15
| VERMEER'S LIFE & ART | Vermeer must have began his required six year apprenticeship, which usually lasted from 4 to 6 years, in the late 1640s with a painting master since he is accepted in the Delft guild in 1653. It is not know, however, either with whom he studied or in which city. In this period there are no records of any kind which testify his whereabouts. Various names and cities have been conjectured. Since his earliest works show remarkable affinities to paintings of two master, Van Loo and Quellinus, both working in Amsterdam, it may be that he was sent there to study. Fabritius, Rembrandt's finest student, was present in Delft but at that time Vermeer would have began to study Fabritius had not been registered the required two years before accepting apprentices. Leonaert Bramer, a family friend of Vermeer, has been cited but the lively Italianate style work of the elder artist is ad odds with Vermeer's somber debuts. |
| DUTCH PAINTING | |
| EUROPEAN PAINTING & ARCHITECTURE |
The Ecstasy of Saint Therese |
| MUSIC | L’Orfeo” was produced in France. It was composed by Luigi Rossi who was imported by Cardinal Mazarin who sought to bring the Italian operatic tradition to France and mate it with the court orchestra, Les Vingt-Quatre Vuiolons du Roi. Pelham Humfrey, English composer, born |
| LITERATURE | |
| SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHY | Nov 8, Pierre Bayle (d.1706), French-Dutch theologian, philosopher, and writer, was born. He authored the “Historical and Critical Dictionary.” "If an 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 | Jan 30, King Charles I was handed over to the English parliament. Nov 10, The all Dutch-held area of New York was returned to English control by the treaty of Westminster. William II succeeds his father as statolder, which he dreams of transforming into a monarchy. In 1648 he is forced to sign peace with Spain. |
1648 Vermeer' Age, 16
| VERMEER'S LIFE & ART |
Vermeer continues his six year apprenticeship with an unknown master in an unknown city. Constantijn Huygens ordered a virginal from Jean Couchet (1615-1655), a nephew of Johannes Ruckers, one of the most refined constructors of virginals at the time. This virginal most likely was very 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. Jacob van Ruisdael enters the painter's guild of Haarlem. His masterful compositions, meticulous draftsmanship, and thick impasto made quiet subjects such as trees or the flat Dutch countryside into deep sources of contemplation. Though earlier Dutch artists used trees merely 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 received a medical degree in 1676 and probably pursued a successful second career as a surgeon. |
| EUROPEAN PAINTING & ARCHITECTURE |
Holy Family on the Steps Antoine Le Nain (b. 1600), 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 were famous: a genre scene without a specific narrative content representing a street musician surrounded by urchins. Louis Le Nain (b.1603) 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 profoundly affected art, garden design, and aesthetics. |
| MUSIC | Apr 11, Matthaus Apelles von Lowenstern (53), composer, died. Aria and recitative become two distinct entities in opera John Blow, English musician, born Heinrich Schutz:"Musicalia ad chorum sacrum" |
| LITERATURE | |
| SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHY | |
| HISTORY | Oct 24, The Peace of Westphalia ended the German Thirty Years War and effectively destroyed the Holy Roman Empire. The Peace of Westphalia, two treaties that ended the Thirty Years” War, divided 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, was granted to Sweden. On the evening of June 5, fireworks and bonfires in all towns of the United Provinces celebrated victory for the Dutch in their war against Spain for independence. The ceremony was 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 condemned the Peace of Westphalia, which ended 30 Years War one month earlier. Jun 4, The English army seized King Charles I as a hostage. |
1649 Vermeer' Age, 17
| VERMEER'S LIFE & ART | Vermeer continues his six year apprenticeship with an unknown master in an unknown city. Vermeer's future mother in law Maria Thins, after considerable legal maneuvering, finally collected all the assets she had been awarded under the terms of the separation from her husband Willem Bolnes. Their value was assessed at 15,606 guider, a considerable sum. Thanks to Maria Thin's economic support, Vermeer, his wife Catharina and their numerous children were able to live comfortably until the art market crumbled in the early 1670s due to the war with France in the late years of the artist's career . And perhaps we can safely state that thanks to Maria Thin's support, Vermeer was able to paint for his own satisfaction rather than for a highly competitive market. |
| DUTCH PAINTING | 
René Descartes Gerard Terborch: paints "Philip IV of Spain," portrait. Paulus Potter, known for his exquisite rendering of animals, moves to The Hague, where in the following year he married Adriana, daughter of the architect Claes van Balkeneynde. Jacob van Loo paints "Diana and the Nymphs" which may have influenced on of Vermeer's early paintings, "Diana and Her Companions" |
| EUROPEAN PAINTING & ARCHITECTURE |
Pope Innocent X David Teniers the Elder (b. 1582), Dutch painter, dies. Diego Velazquez: paints Pope Innocent X portrait while in Rome. The painting is immediately praised as a masterpiece. The Pope is said to have commented "it is too real!" Salvator Rosa returns to Rome, where he spends the rest of his life. Nicola Poussin created his painting “Moses Striking the Rock.” |
| MUSIC | David Teniers the Elder (b. 1582), Dutch painter, dies. Diego Velazquez: paints Pope Innocent X portrait while in Rome. The painting is immediately praised as a masterpiece. The Pope is said to have commented "it is too real!" Salvator Rosa returns to Rome, where he spends the rest of his life. Nicola Poussin created his painting “Moses Striking the Rock.” |
| LITERATURE | |
| SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHY | Sep 1, Descartes departed Amsterdam to go to Sweden at the invitation of Queen Kristina. |
| HISTORY | Jan 30, King Charles I of England, who ruled from 1625-1649, was beheaded for treason at Banqueting House, Whitehall, by the hangman Richard Brandon. He lost 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: "Les Passions de I'Ame" In Great Britain, English becomes language of all legal documents in place of Latin |
1650 Vermeer' Age, 18
| VERMEER'S LIFE & ART | Vermeer continues his six year apprenticeship with an unknown master in an unknown city. |
| DUTCH PAINTING | 
Isabella Coymans Carl Fabritius, one of Rembrandt's most promising pupils, arrives in Delft. He joins the Saint Luke's guild only two years later. Gerard 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 painted the portrait: "Juan de Pareja." "Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi", fountain of Four Rivers, in Rome’s Piazza Navona was designed by baroque master Bernini. |
| MUSIC | Beginning of modern harmony; development of modulation. The overture as musical form emerges in two types, Italian and French. |
| LITERATURE | Corneille: "Andromède," tragedy |
| SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHY | René Descartes dies (b. 1596) Descartes is one of the most important Western philosophers of the past few centuries. During his lifetime, Descartes was just as famous as an original physicist, physiologist and mathematician. But it is as a highly original philosopher that he is most frequently read today. He attempted to restart philosophy in a fresh direction. His philosophy refused to accept the Aristotelian and Scholastic traditions that had dominated philosophical thought throughout the Medieval period; it attempted to fully integrate philosophy with the 'new' sciences; and Descartes changed the relationship between philosophy and theology. Such new directions for philosophy made Descartes into a revolutionary figure. |
| HISTORY | Nov 4, William III, Prince of Orange and King of England, was born. C. 1650 The mass production of glass bottles and the development of cork stoppers begins to make possible the controlled aging of wine. Jan 1, Charles II (Stuart) was 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' Age, 19
| VERMEER'S LIFE & ART | Vermeer continues his six year apprenticeship with an unknown master in an unknown city. 1650-1651 Quillinus painted an Erasmus for the Amsterdam New Town Hall which is strongly reminiscent of Vermeer's later painting "Christ in the House of Martha and Mary." Jacob Van Loo, also living in Amsterdam, paints a "Diana and Her Companions, " whose composition may have influenced a painting of the same theme by the young Vermeer. Although there exist no direct records of Vermeer's presence in Amsterdam, both of these facts would seem to indicate that Vermeer had studied there. |
| DUTCH PAINTING | Paulus Potter paints "Landscape with Cows." |
| EUROPEAN PAINTING & ARCHITECTURE |
|
| MUSIC | Heinrich Albert, German composer, dies. |
| LITERATURE | |
| SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHY | Feb 1, Rene Descartes, philosopher: "I think therefore I am", dies. |
| HISTORY | Dutch settle at Cape of Good Hope. Sep 3, Battle at Worcester- Oliver Cromwell destroyed English royalists. Charles II led the Scots Covenanters to a disastrous defeat at the battle of Worcester. |
1652 Vermeer' 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 Carl Fabritius is registered in the Saint Luke's guild in Delft. He is Vermeer's elder by 10 years. Frans van Mieris, three years younger than Vermeer, paints his "Charlatan" which may have inspired Vermeer's "Procuress" (1656). |
| EUROPEAN PAINTING & ARCHITECTURE |
|
| MUSIC | Gregorio Allegri, Italian tenor and composer dies The minuet comes into fashion at French court First opera house in Vienna |
| LITERATURE | Corneille: "Nicoméde," tragedy |
| SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHY | Imperial Ger. Academy of Naturalists founded at Schweinfurt (moved to Halle in 1878) |
| HISTORY | Sep 3, Battle at Worcester- Oliver Cromwell destroyed English royalists. Charles II led the Scots Covenanters to a disastrous defeat at the battle of Worcester. War breaks out between England and the United Provinces. May 29, English Admiral Robert Blake drove out the Dutch fleet under Lieutenant-Admiral Tromp |
