[]
Vermeer
Play sample
  • Published: 12 January 2027
  • ISBN: 9780141974897
  • Imprint: Penguin Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 416
  • RRP: $32.00
Categories:

Vermeer

A Life Lost and Found

Formats & editions
Paperback
12 Jan 2027
Hardback
28 Oct 2025
EBook
23 Oct 2025
Audiobook
23 Oct 2025
Pre-order from…
Book Hero BookHub Mighty Ape Paper Plus The Nile The Warehouse Whitcoulls Unity Books Find Local Retailers

A revelatory and highly acclaimed new biography of the enigmatic Dutch artist, 'which is going to revolutionize the way we see Vermeer' (Peter Carey)

The paintings of Johannes Vermeer are some of the most sublime in the history of art. Yet until now they have, like the life of Vermeer himself, defied explanation. Following new leads, and drawing on a mass of historical evidence, some of it freshly uncovered in the archives of Delft and Rotterdam, Andrew Graham-Dixon paints a dramatically new picture of Vermeer, revealing many of the painter’s hitherto unknown friendships as well as his previously undetected allegiance to a persecuted, underground radical movement.

In this revolutionary reassessment of nearly all of Vermeer’s most beloved works – including The Girl with a Pearl Earring, A View of Delft and The Milkmaid – our image of him is transformed from an isolated and mysterious figure into an artist at the nexus of a web of philosophers, financiers, patrons, preachers and regents, giving rich new insight into one of the most enigmatic figures in art history.
  • Published: 12 January 2027
  • ISBN: 9780141974897
  • Imprint: Penguin Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 416
  • RRP: $32.00
Categories:

About the author

Andrew Graham-Dixon

Andrew Graham-Dixon is one of Britain's most high profile commentators on the visual arts - an art historian, biographer and broadcaster who has made more BBC television series about art than any other presenter. He was for many years the main art critic of the Sunday Telegraph and Independent.
AG-

Also by Andrew Graham-Dixon

Art
Artists Who Changed History
Caravaggio
See all

Praise for Vermeer

Graham-Dixon's amazing discoveries will surprise and delight ... the best biography of Vermeer and the most complete analysis of his artwork that has ever been published

Timothy Brook, Times Literary Supplement

This is impressive detective work ... Graham-Dixon give[s] us the deepest and most rounded portrait of Vermeer we are ever likely to have ... [he] is the best parser of painterly effects since the late Robert Hughes

Christopher Bray, Prospect

A powerfully persuasive investigation into the intellectual and devotional world of Vermeer and his circle. Painting by painting, the riddle of the Sphinx is masterfully unravelled ... Andrew Graham-Dixon trawls the archives, lays out new evidence, links pictures never linked before, and teases new meaning from signs, symbols and sitters ... His reading of the paintings is revelatory

Laura Freeman, The Times

Densely researched and highly original .... this book is an extraordinary portrait, flooded with light and colour, and a splendid unfolding of the pressure of meaning in everyday life; in other words, it emulates the special charge of Vermeer’s paintings

Kathryn Murphy, Literary Review

With the skill of a good showman and the meticulousness of a scholar, Graham-Dixon sets out to illuminate the elusive life of Johannes Vermeer ... There are few better writers to take on the task

Telegraph, Evgenia Siokos