Bringing together diverse strands of the Dutch master's professional and private worlds, this is the first major authoritative study of Vermeer's life and work for many years shedding light on all thirty-seven of his paintings. With a wide selection of contextual illustrations, commentaries and up-to-date research by distinguished international Vermeer scholars, this is the definitive volume on the most admired of all seventeenth-century Dutch masters. 320 pages hc