Infamous

Diana Bownds
Art History 1302
3/21/2010
Research Paper
Johannes Vermeer
Johannes Vermeer was born in 1632, in the city of Delft in the Netherlands. According to VermeerGallery.com “The precise date of his birth is unknown but, it is known that he was baptized on October 31, 1632, in the Reformed Church in Delft” .Vermeer was born into a very refrormed protestant family with Calvinistic ideals..His father, Reynier Vermeer, was a lower middle-class silk weaver and an art dealer which could of contributed some of vermeers talents. according to “The Vermeer family bought a large inn, the "Mechelen" named after the homonymous Belgian town, near the market square in Delft in 1641“. Many researchers believed Reynier Vermeer probably served as inn-keeper while also acting as an art dealer“. After his father's death , Johannes Vermeer inherited the Mechelen as well as his father's art-dealing business. After becomingthe owner Vermeer got married. Despite the fact that he came from a reformed protestant family,Vermeer married a Catholic Women by the name of Catherina Bolnes, in April 1653. according to Vermeer may have converted to Catholicism shortly before their Marriage, a conversion suggested by the fact that some of his children were named after Catholic saints . After being married for a few years Vermeer and Bolnes left the Mechelen and moved in with Catherina's mother,” Maria Thins, a well-off widow, in a house in the "Papist corner" of town, where Catholics lived in relative isolation“. Vermeer would live in his mother-in-law's house with his wife and children for the rest of his life. According to “Maria apparently played an important role in their life, for they named their first daughter after her, and it is possible that she used her comfortable income to help support the struggling painter and his growing family. Most of vermeers works were bought by local art collector Pieter van Ruijven. Unfortunatelybecause of the War between France and the...