he was just
twenty-one years old. His admission to the corporation of painters as
a master occurred the same year, as the books attest. In 1662 he was
elected dean of the corporation, and again in 1670. In 1675 he died,
in his forty-third year, and at the apogee of his powers.

When he became a member of the corporation of painters at Delft he
could not pay in full the initiation fee, six florins, and he gave on
account one florin ten cents--the entry in the books attests this
astounding fact. He was poor, but he had youth and genius, and he
loved.

He had also eight or ten children and lived happily--as do most people
without a history--on the Oude Langendyck, where he became at least a
local celebrity, according to a mention of him in the Journal des
Voyages, by Balthazar de Moncouys (published 1665). Moncouys also
recorded another interesting fact. "At Delft I saw the painter
Vermeer," he writes, "but none of his works were at his atelier; at a
baker's I saw a figure--for which was paid six hundred livres." At a
bakeshop! Vermeer, then, literally painted for his bread.

In 1696, twenty years after his death, certain of his works (forty in
the catalogue) brought only 100 florins, pictures that to-day are
worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. And in 1719 the superb Milk
Girl, now in the Rijks Museum, formerly from the Six Collection, was
sold for 126 florins (it brought $100,000 when Mr. Six sold it to the
museum), while at the same sale the mediocre Gerard Dou fetched 6,000
florins for a canvas. Even nowadays the public has not been converted
to the idea of the greatness of Vermeer. Go any time of the day into
the Mauritshuis at The Hague and you will always discover a crowd
before that clumsy, stupid bull with the wooden legs, by no means Paul
Potter's masterpiece, while the gem of The Hague gallery, the View of
Delft, with its rich pate, its flowing rhythms, its clear daylight,
seldom draws a large audience. And I do not doubt that only the
propinquity of Rembrandt's Young Saskia to Vermeer's Merry Company
(otherwise known as The Courtesan) in the Dresden gallery attracts an
otherwise indifferent public.

In 1696 there were 21 pictures of Vermeer sold at public auction in
Amsterdam. Of these 21 the experts claim to have discovered 16. But
the bother of the question is that 100 other pictures were also sold
at the same time; furthermore, the sale is said to have taken place
after the death of a venerable medi