Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found
This revelatory biography persuasively addresses the two great unresolved questions about Vermeer—why did he paint his pictures, and what do they mean?

One spring day in 1683, a notary’s clerk in Delft entered the home of the late Magdalena Pieters van Ruijven and stumbled on one of the wonders of the seventeenth–century world: twenty paintings by Johannes Vermeer. How had this one Dutchwoman come to possess the majority of the master’s work? And why have these images—among the most beautiful, even sublime, in the history of art—defied explanation for so long? Following new leads and drawing on freshly uncovered evidence from Dutch archives, acclaimed art historian Andrew Graham–Dixon presents a dramatic and transformative new interpretation of the artist’s life and work. Rich with piercingly direct descriptions of Vermeer’s paintings, Graham–Dixon’s biography is full of revelations. It upends the master’s enigmatic reputation and depicts him instead as a pioneer of the early Enlightenment, a pacifist who was deeply affected by the wars and religious conflicts of the Dutch Republic and allied to a radical movement driven underground by persecution.

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Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found
This revelatory biography persuasively addresses the two great unresolved questions about Vermeer—why did he paint his pictures, and what do they mean?

One spring day in 1683, a notary’s clerk in Delft entered the home of the late Magdalena Pieters van Ruijven and stumbled on one of the wonders of the seventeenth–century world: twenty paintings by Johannes Vermeer. How had this one Dutchwoman come to possess the majority of the master’s work? And why have these images—among the most beautiful, even sublime, in the history of art—defied explanation for so long? Following new leads and drawing on freshly uncovered evidence from Dutch archives, acclaimed art historian Andrew Graham–Dixon presents a dramatic and transformative new interpretation of the artist’s life and work. Rich with piercingly direct descriptions of Vermeer’s paintings, Graham–Dixon’s biography is full of revelations. It upends the master’s enigmatic reputation and depicts him instead as a pioneer of the early Enlightenment, a pacifist who was deeply affected by the wars and religious conflicts of the Dutch Republic and allied to a radical movement driven underground by persecution.

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Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found

Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found

by Andrew Graham-Dixon
Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found

Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found

by Andrew Graham-Dixon

Hardcover

$45.00 
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Overview

This revelatory biography persuasively addresses the two great unresolved questions about Vermeer—why did he paint his pictures, and what do they mean?

One spring day in 1683, a notary’s clerk in Delft entered the home of the late Magdalena Pieters van Ruijven and stumbled on one of the wonders of the seventeenth–century world: twenty paintings by Johannes Vermeer. How had this one Dutchwoman come to possess the majority of the master’s work? And why have these images—among the most beautiful, even sublime, in the history of art—defied explanation for so long? Following new leads and drawing on freshly uncovered evidence from Dutch archives, acclaimed art historian Andrew Graham–Dixon presents a dramatic and transformative new interpretation of the artist’s life and work. Rich with piercingly direct descriptions of Vermeer’s paintings, Graham–Dixon’s biography is full of revelations. It upends the master’s enigmatic reputation and depicts him instead as a pioneer of the early Enlightenment, a pacifist who was deeply affected by the wars and religious conflicts of the Dutch Republic and allied to a radical movement driven underground by persecution.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781324124115
Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date: 04/07/2026
Pages: 496
Product dimensions: 6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Andrew Graham–Dixon is an art historian, biographer, and broadcaster. He was for many years the main art critic of the Independent and the Sunday Telegraph and is the author of the award–winning biography Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane. He lives in East Sussex.
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