For a period of barely 100 years, The Netherlands boasted the most powerful empire in the world – a power driven by markets rather than privilege.
And one of its successful areas was its art market: the great painters Rembrandt, Frans Hals and Vermeer contributed to a cultural explosion known as The Golden Age.
And like the tiny country they lived and worked in, these painters experienced good fortune as well as bad – enjoying prestige, wealth and prosperity before falling into poverty.
Vermeer’s fortunes in particular were tied to those of the Republic: 1672, when the artist turned 40, was its ‘year of disaster’, as English, French and German forces tried to invade from different directions. The Dutch survived – but their global supremacy did not, and Vermeer also fell upon hard times before dying soon after.
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