His modest celebrity gave way to obscurity after his death. 'Almost all his paintings', Hans Koningsberger wrote, 'are apparently set in two smallish rooms in his house in Delft they show the same furniture and decorations in various arrangements and they often portray the same people, mostly women.'
He is particularly renowned for his masterly treatment and use of light in his work. Vermeer worked slowly and with great care, and frequently used very expensive pigments.
Nonetheless, he produced relatively few paintings and evidently was not wealthy, leaving his wife and children in debt at his death. During his lifetime, he was a moderately successful provincial genre painter, recognized in Delft and The Hague. Today in history On this day in 1632, Johannes Vermeer was born Johannes Vermeer was a Dutch Baroque Period painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life.
