ABSTRACT
Johannes Vermeer may be a celebrity now, but in his lifetime –, or so a parade of scholars has told us – he was sorely neglected. The Delft painter was a bit of a mystery, a genius manqué, making him all the more beloved among the art historians and the public at large. Even John Michael Montias, who finally gave us a historically sound Vermeer, found it hard to believe that, in fact, the painter’s fame may have extended beyond the city walls of Delft in his own day, and that – as two contemporary diaries suggest – it had spread among the highest circles in The Hague. 1 Indeed, some art enthusiasts went to visit Vermeer in his studio. On 11 August 1663, the French diplomat Balthasar de Monconys (1611-1665) traveled from The Hague to Delft with only one objective, to meet the painter: “A Delphes ie [je] vis le Peintre Verme[e]r.” Six years later, on 14 May 1669, the Hague regent Pieter Teding van Berckhout (1643-1713) made a similar trip: “Estant arrivé ie vis un excellent Peijntre nommé Vermeer.” On June 21, he even paid a second visit: “[je] fus voir un celebre Peijntre nommé Verme[e]r.” 2 Michael Montias published the latter notes in 1993. He was clearly surprised: “…it would never have occurred to me that he would be called ‘célèbre.’” 3
