Where to See Every Vermeer Painting in the World
There are only about 35 of them. Here is the map: city by city, museum by museum, and the one that is still missing.
Johannes Vermeer left roughly 35 accepted paintings, and they are spread across about 17 museums in Europe and the United States. The largest groups are at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (four), the Mauritshuis in The Hague (three, including "Girl with a Pearl Earring"), the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (five), and the National Gallery of Art in Washington (four). One, "The Concert," was stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990 and has never been recovered.
Most great painters left hundreds of pictures. Rembrandt left around 300, Monet closer to 2,000. Johannes Vermeer left about 35, and scholars still argue over two or three of those. He worked slowly, sold locally, died in debt at 43, and was nearly forgotten for two centuries. That scarcity is part of why standing in front of one feels like an event.
The good news is that almost all of them are on public view, and a few cities hold enough to fill an afternoon. This is the map.
Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum (four paintings)
The Rijksmuseum has the largest single group: The Milkmaid, The Little Street, Woman Reading a Letter, and The Love Letter. They hang together in the Gallery of Honour, a few steps from Rembrandt's Night Watch, which makes this the best single room in the world for Dutch painting.
We wrote about what makes that picture work in why The Milkmaid is a masterpiece.
The Hague: Mauritshuis (three paintings)
A twenty-minute train ride from Amsterdam, the Mauritshuis holds Girl with a Pearl Earring, View of Delft, and the early Diana and Her Nymphs. View of Delft is the one Proust called the most beautiful painting in the world; it is the picture at the top of this page. The museum is small and the crowds in front of the Girl are real, so go at opening.
If she is the reason you are going, read the secret of Girl with a Pearl Earring first.
New York: the Met and the Frick (eight paintings between them)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art owns five Vermeers, more than any museum outside the Netherlands: Young Woman with a Water Pitcher, A Maid Asleep, Study of a Young Woman, Allegory of the Catholic Faith, and Young Woman with a Lute. The Frick Collection, a few blocks up Fifth Avenue, has three more: Mistress and Maid, Officer and Laughing Girl, and Girl Interrupted at Her Music. One subway ride, eight Vermeers.
Washington: National Gallery of Art (four paintings)
The National Gallery of Art has Woman Holding a Balance, A Lady Writing, Girl with the Red Hat, and Girl with a Flute, the last of which the museum now attributes to a follower rather than to Vermeer himself. Admission is free, and the Vermeers hang in a quiet run of Dutch rooms that rarely feel crowded.
Boston: the one that is missing
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum owned The Concert until the night of March 18, 1990, when two men dressed as police officers talked their way in and left with thirteen works. The Concert is thought to be the most valuable stolen painting in the world. Its empty frame still hangs in the Dutch Room, and the museum's reward for information stands at ten million dollars.
London and the rest of Britain (four paintings)
The National Gallery in London has a matched pair: A Young Woman Standing at a Virginal and A Young Woman Seated at a Virginal. Kenwood House, on Hampstead Heath, has The Guitar Player, free to visit. The Music Lesson belongs to the Royal Collection and is usually on view at Buckingham Palace or on loan.
Paris: the Louvre (two paintings)
The Lacemaker and The Astronomer both hang in the Louvre. The Lacemaker is tiny, not much bigger than a sheet of paper, and it is easy to walk past. Do not.
Vienna, Berlin, Dresden, Frankfurt, Braunschweig (seven paintings)
The Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna owns The Art of Painting, the large, self-aware picture of a painter at his easel that Vermeer kept until he died. Berlin's Gemäldegalerie has The Wine Glass and Woman with a Pearl Necklace. Dresden's Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister has The Procuress and Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, the latter recently restored to reveal a painted Cupid on the back wall. Frankfurt's Städel has The Geographer, and Braunschweig's Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum has The Girl with the Wine Glass.
Dublin and Edinburgh (two paintings)
The National Gallery of Ireland has Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid, itself stolen twice and recovered both times. The Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh has Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, the largest Vermeer and one of the earliest, painted before he found the quiet interiors that made him.
Tokyo (one painting)
Saint Praxedis, an early and still-debated work, belongs to the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, which acquired it in 2014. It is the only Vermeer in Asia.
How to plan it
If you can make one trip, make it the Netherlands: Amsterdam and The Hague together put seven Vermeers within an hour of each other. If you are in the United States, New York and Washington hold twelve between them, all within a train ride. And wherever you are, go early. A Vermeer is a small, quiet thing, and it is at its best with no one standing in front of it.
Open Johannes Vermeer on DiscoverArt to see every one of these together on a single page, then find the one you would cross an ocean for.
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