A Timeline of Vermeer's Life - 1668-1675
Late Period

The Geographer
Johannes Vermeer
c.1668-1669

The Astronomer
Johannes Vermeer
c. 1668

Perhaps Vermeer signs and dates the "Astronomer" 1668. The dating of the "Astronomer" is considered to have been added later on by another hand. The only other dated painting by Vermeer is the early  "The Procuress."  Some scholars believe that  Delft citizen Antony van Leeuwenhoek, who was by then internationally recognized for his studies in optics and scientific observations, posed for the  "Astronomer", although portraits of Leeuwenhoek bear little resemblance to the seated man  in Vermeer's picture.

The Lacemaker
Johannes Vermeer
c. 1669-1671

Vermeer's mother, Digna Baltens, leases the inn Mechelen to a shoemaker for three years. She and her husband had owned in the place for 28 years. Afterwards she went to live with her daughter Gertruy on the Vlamingstraat, in Delft.

Vermeer and his wife bury another child in the Oude Kerk.

Pieter Teding van Berckhout (1643-171.) , who was from an important family in the Hague, visits Vermeer twice and enters in his diaries his impressions. In his diary, May 14,1669, Van Berckhout wrote: "Having arrived in Delft, I saw an excellent painter named Vermeer," stating also that he had seen several "curiosities" of the artist. He had arrived in Delft accompanied by Constantijn Huygens and his friends-- member of parliament Ewout van der Horst and ambassador Willem Nieupoort. Huygens was an artistic authority in his own day, maintaining contacts with the famous Flemish painters Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck and recording in his own diary some remarkably insightful comments about the art of, among others, Rembrandt van Rijn.

Van Berckhout must have been deeply impressed by the work he saw in Vermeer 's studio, since he returned for another visit less than a month later. On June 11, Van Berckhout noted: "I went to see a celebrated painter named Vermeer" who "showed me some examples of his art, the most extraordinary and most curious aspect of which consists in the perspective." This time Van Berckhout used the term "celebrated" rather than "excellent" in describing Vermeer. This testifies Vermeer had achieved a rather considerable reputation. What is most interesting about this visit is that Vermeer's studio (like Dou and van Mieris) was evidently a major cultural destination.

In the late 1660s, Vermeer's style had become increasing stylized and his touch calligraphic as can be seen in "The Lacemaker." The still-life of this picture is so highly abstracted that it is difficult to determine just which objects are represented.

French influence where elegance and grace were more important that the traditionally objective values favored by Dutch painters.

The Love Letter
Johannes Vermeer
c. 1667-1670

"The Love Letter," painted in these years, shows the evident abstract qualities which in which he reduced reality to a series of small, flat , interlocking planes. The increased stylization and refinement of his later works was not unique to him but common to many Dutch painters of the late 1670s. The reasons for Vermeer' shift in style is subject to various interpretations.

Vermeer's mother is buried in the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft, February 13.

Geertruijt Reynier Vermeer, Vermeer's sister, is buried at the beginning of May in the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft.

Vermeer inherits Mechelen from his mother, July 13. He rents it to a shoemaker caller Van Ackerdyck.

Vermeer is appointed for a second time headmen of the Saint Luke's Guild. He continues to paint in an "abstract" mode paying greater attention to pattern and the compositional structure of his works. Scholars have asserted that Vermeer may have been following the popular French mode of painting.

Delft pop. 15,000
The Hague pop. 6,000
Amsterdam pop. 219,000

In July Vermeer appears before the notary Assendelft to acknowledge that he had received an inheritance of 148 guilders from his sister's estate.

Vermeer leases Mechelen to an apothecary for six years.

In May Vermeer travels with two other headmen of the Saint Luke guild of Delft to The Hague in order to appraise a collection of disputed Italian paintings. Since one of the members of the expedition, Johannes Jordaens had spent many yeas in Italy, and Vermeer probably never left the Netherlands, it is likely that he was chosen for his importance as the headmaster of the guild. They testify before a notary that the works are "great pieces of rubbish and bad paintings."

Vermeer's earnings from his paintings after the French invaded the Netherlands of this year was probably considerably lower that those of the 1660s. His family was also very large by Dutch standards where only two or three children were usual. His economic problems may have been worsened because of low rate of production and restricted clientele and consequentially high prices of his paintings.

The refined sense of balance in Vermeer's compositions of the 1660s have given way to a new dynamic direction in the early 1670s. In "The Guitar Player," Vermeer rejected balance in favor of a highly asymmetric compositions. The figure of the young girl seems to literally burst off the canvas. The music of the guitar, much bolder than that of the lute, had become popular in these years.

A Lady Standing at a Virginal
Johannes Vermeer
c. 1670-1673

June 27, another child of Vermeer is buried in the family grave in the Oude Kerk.

Vermeer rents family inn Mechelen that he had inherited to his namesake an apothecary, for six years at 180 guilders a year, which was 10 guilders less that what was obtained from the shoemaker. The previous year had been called "the catastrophe" due to the French invasion.

July 21, Vermeer sells two bonds totaling eight hundred guilders, one of which, worth 500 guilders, is in the name of Magdalena Pieters (1655-1682), daughters of Pieter Claesz van Ruijven, from whom Vermeer had barrowed money in 1657.

Pieter van Ruijven, prominent Delft citizen and Vermeer's principle patron, dies. Van Ruijven had purchased about 20 of Vermeer's works, almost half of his total artistic output.

Vermeer's name appears on the register of the Delft militia. He was described, third on the list, as a schutter or marksman of the first rotten or squadron of the third company or vendel. This was the Orange company whose members were recruited from the quarter of the city that contained Oude Langedijk,, where Vermeer and his family was living with his step-mother, Maria Thins. Leonaert Bramer, friend of the Vermeer family for many years and noted painter of Delft, was of the same company. The fact that Vermeer was accepted in the Delft militia testifies to his high social standings.

June, Maria, Vermeer's eldest daughter, and Catharina, now about 20, married then son of a prosperous Delft silk merchant Johannes Gilliszoon Cramer, who followed his father's profession. The wedding was held in Schipluy, as Maria's parents' wedding had been, and presumably with Catholic sacraments.

Reynier Bolnes, Vermeer's father-in-law, dies. Vermeer travels to Gouda to settle the estate.

Delft tax register more than 200 houses worth more than 20,000 guilders. A carpenter or mason earned about 500 guilders a year.

Lady Seated at a Virginal
Johannes Vermeer
c.  1670-1675

Vermeer borrows one thousand guilders, a considerable sum equivalent to about two year's earnings of a mason, from an Amsterdam merchant.

Maria Thins empowers Vermeer to collect and administer money owed to her son.

Vermeer is buried in the Oude Kerk, July 20. He leaves an impoverished widow and eleven children, ten of whom are still minors. Vermeer probably painted very little in his last years. His death, three years later, at the age of forty-three, was described by his wife, "as a result and owing to the great burden of his children, having no means of his own, he had lapsed into such decay and decadence, which he had so taken to heart that, as if he had fallen into a frenzy, in a day or day and a half had gone from being healthy to being dead." The burial registers of the Oude Kerk mention on December 15, 1675: "Jan Vermeer, artist of the Oude Langedijk, in the Oude Kerk." Catharina was left with ten children and an enormous debt. She was able to survive only through the loving help of her mother Maria Thins. A plea to her creditors some time after her husband's premature death strikes a final sad note in Vermeer's brief life: "during the ruinous war he not only was unable to sell any of his art but also, to his great detriment, was left sitting with the paintings of other masters that he was dealing in."