Vermeer

"In many ways, it should be said, Bailey's is a model biography. Taken merely as a sifting of all the documents that have come to light on the painter, plus the many hypotheses that relate to him, Bailey's study is unbeatable. It's a pleasure to read....Bailey concisely and helpfully brings the story right to the present, touching on the painter's growing fame outside Holland in the nineteenth century [and] about the role the painter played in Proust's life and in his novel....The only thing that's missing is a specifically Baileyesque conception of Vermeer....You put the book down believing that everything you need to know about the painter is here except that Vermeer himself has slipped out."Bailey, Martin is the author of 'Vermeer', published 1995 under ISBN 9780714834634 and ISBN 0714834637.