Johannes Vermeer

Johannes Vermeer spent his life in Delft, in the Dutch Republic, painting women reading, writing, weighing and pouring in the same two small rooms of his house, lit by a window on the left. He worked slowly with very expensive pigments, earned his living mostly as an art dealer, and died in debt at forty three. Only 34 of his paintings survive.

That scarcity makes every one an event. The National Gallery of Art in Washington, which is free, has Woman Holding a Balance in the Dutch galleries on the main floor of the West Building. In Boston, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum owned The Concert until March 18, 1990, when thieves dressed as police officers took it with twelve other works. It has never been found.