The Art of Painting

Vermeer painted himself at his easel, his back to us, painting a model dressed as Clio (Muse of History). On the wall behind him: a map of the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands as they were before the 1648 Peace of Münster — Northern and Southern Netherlands as one. By 1666 the country in the map no longer existed; the South had separated eighteen years earlier. Vermeer's only signed painting. He never sold it; it was found in his estate. Now at Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna @kunsthistorischesmuseumvienna