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This image A visitor looks at The Milkmaid, said to have been painted circa 1658


VERMEER


An enigmatic painter surrounded by mystery that eludes art historians to this day, Vermeer is now getting his time in the spotlight in the largest exhibition dedicated to him yet. Stephen Hitchins takes a look


AS A MAN Vermeer is little more than a signature. We know his paintings but we do not know the artist. It’s a question of identity. Not exactly the incredible shrinking man, but the more you think you see of him, the less there appears to be. He might as well be the man who never was. He appears to be the man who wasn’t there. He was certainly a man of mystery. And his paintings tell their own mysterious stories. Tere is an Arabian Nights flavour about a painter who leaves so few traces of himself, the greatness of his stature equal to the dearth of knowledge about him. One reason for his popularity is that he eludes art historians.


A Catholic convert, a part-time painter barely recognised for two centuries whose


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