Review
"This remarkably useful book is part of the rapidly proliferating Cambridge Companion series...I found it to be an excellent teaching text, and for other interested readers it offers a sound, nuanced introduction, not only to Vermeer but to many of the concerns currently of interest to scholars of seventeenth-century Dutch art...the writing flows with commmendable ease. This in itself is an achievement, particularly in an anthology, and is a credit to the authors and editor alike...That this book propels the reader back to the original paintings is a measure of its success." Historians of Netherlandish Art

"The Cambridge Companion to Vermeer provides a welcome selection of the most recent scholarship and methodological approaches toward Vermeer.... Franits has assembled a cohesive group of clearly written essays.... The first of Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr.'s two contributions, 'Vermeer's Craft and Artistry,' includes a magnificent formal analysis of the Women in Blue Reading a Letter (Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum) that should be required reading for every art history student.... The Cambridge Companion to Vermeer will be of interest to many different types of readers, as was its intention, and it should easily find its place onto course syllabi as an informative reference source." Sixteenth Century Journal

Book Description
The Cambridge Companion to Vermeer offers a systematic overview of the artist's life and work that will be useful to specialists, students, and the general public. Its eleven essays include studies of the artist's development and approach to painting, women as a subject in Vermeer's work, the role of Catholicism in Vermeer's life and art, and the artist's reputation during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, among other topics. Collectively, these essays provide a balanced and enlightening examination of many different aspects of Vermeer's art.

FROM THE PUBLISHER