ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

One of the most helpful and readable sources on seventeenth-century Holland is Simon Schama’s The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (1987). What little is known about Vermeer’s life and family has been thoroughly documented by John Montias in Vermeer and His Milieu (1989). The catalogue for the 1996 Vermeer exhibition has beautiful reproductions and clear analyses of the paintings.

I would like to thank Philip Steadman, Nicola Costaras, Humphrey Ocean, and Joanna Woodall for talking with me about various aspects of Vermeer’s work. Mick Bartram, Ora Dresner, Nina Killham, Dale Reynolds, and Robert and Angela Royston all made helpful and supportive comments about the manuscript in progress. Thanks, finally, to my agent, Jonny Geller, and my editor, Susan Watt, for doing what they do so well.