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50 free Vermeer trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Johannes Vermeer painted fewer than 50 pictures, sold most of them to one Delft family, and died in debt at 43 during the Dutch Republic's disaster year. Then he vanished from the history books for two centuries until a French critic rebuilt his catalogue and Proust fainted in front of View of Delft. These 50 questions cover the life and the paintings: the inn his father ran on the market square, the Catholic conversion his mother-in-law demanded, the Guild of Saint Luke, the gunpowder explosion that flattened Delft, and the lavish ultramarine he kept buying even when broke. There are questions on Girl with a Pearl Earring (its green background, its two-guilder sale, Banksy's alarm box), on the Concert still missing from the Gardner Museum, on The Art of Painting's wartime journey into Hitler's collection, on Han van Meegeren's fake that fooled Göring, and on the camera obscura theory tested in Tim's Vermeer. Easy questions cover museums and famous titles; the hard tier asks about tripe sellers, forged signatures and where Vermeer hid his initials. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which Dutch city did Vermeer live and work his whole life?
Delft
He was baptized, married, painted and buried there, earning the nickname 'The Sphinx of Delft'.
Q 02Which museum holds Girl with a Pearl Earring?
Mauritshuis
It arrived in The Hague by bequest in 1902 after selling at auction for about two guilders.
Q 03Roughly how many paintings did 21st-century scholars universally attribute to Vermeer?
34
Thoré-Bürger once credited him with 66; he probably painted fewer than 50 in total.
Q 04What kind of light source lights most of Vermeer's interior scenes?
A window on the left
Hans Koningsberger noted that nearly all of them seem set in two small rooms of his Delft house.
Q 05What object did Vermeer paint out of The Milkmaid, later revealed by X-ray?
A clothes basket
He also painted over a large wall map behind her; the removals tightened the focus on the pouring milk.
Q 06How old was Vermeer when he died in December 1675?
43
His widow blamed financial stress; he went 'from being healthy to being dead' in a day and a half.
Q 07Which expensive blue pigment did Vermeer use unusually lavishly?
Natural ultramarine
He even laid it under earth colours like umber and ochre to cool their shade.
Q 08Which novelist wrote the 1999 novel Girl with a Pearl Earring?
Tracy Chevalier
Her fictional servant-model was played by Scarlett Johansson in the 2003 film.
Q 09What is the Dutch term for a painted 'head' that was not meant as a portrait?
Tronie
Girl with a Pearl Earring is one; it depicts 'exotic dress' and an 'oriental turban'.
Q 10Which Vermeer was stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990?
The Concert
Thieves dressed as policemen took 13 works; it is thought to be the most valuable unrecovered painting.
Q 11Who was appointed trustee of Vermeer's estate after his death?
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
The microscopist worked for the Delft city council as a surveyor.
Q 12Which river's calm harbour, nicknamed the Kolk, reflects the buildings in View of Delft?
Schie
Two herring busses sit before the Rotterdam Gate; the Schiedam Gate stands mid-composition.
Q 13Which Vienna institution displays The Art of Painting?
Kunsthistorisches Museum
It spent the war in Hitler's Linz collection and was rescued from a salt mine at Altaussee.
Q 21Which Paris museum owns The Astronomer?
Louvre
France took it in lieu of inheritance tax from the Rothschilds in 1983.
Q 22Which 19th-century French critic's 1866 catalogue revived interest in Vermeer?
Théophile Thoré-Bürger
He ascribed more than 70 works to Vermeer, many of them doubtful.
Q 23Which trade association did Vermeer join on 29 December 1653?
Guild of Saint Luke
The records show he did not pay the usual admission fee; it was a year of plague and war.
Q 14What religion did Vermeer convert to before his 1653 marriage?
Catholicism
His mother-in-law Maria Thins, wealthier than he was, probably insisted on it.
Q 15What was the name of Vermeer's wife?
Catharina Bolnes
She bore 15 children and was left in debt when he died.
Q 16How many children did Vermeer's wife give birth to?
15
Four were buried before baptism; she still had 11 to raise when he died.
Q 17Which 2013 documentary follows an inventor recreating The Music Lesson with mirrors?
Tim's Vermeer
Tim Jenison spent five years testing his comparator-mirror theory.
Q 18Which British artist argued in 2001 that Vermeer used optics to compose his pictures?
David Hockney
The Hockney–Falco thesis also roped in Holbein and Velázquez.
Q 19Which Dutch forger sold fake Vermeers, one of them to Hermann Göring?
Han van Meegeren
He confessed to forgery to dodge a treason charge for selling Dutch cultural property to the Nazis.
Q 20The Astronomer and The Geographer are both thought to portray which man?
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
A 2017 study found both canvases came from the same bolt of cloth.
Q 24What disaster struck Delft in 1654, the year after Vermeer joined the guild?
A gunpowder explosion
The 'Delft Thunderclap' killed painter Carel Fabritius among hundreds of others.
Q 25Which 1672 crisis ended Vermeer's sales and wrecked his art business?
The Rampjaar
French, Münster and Cologne troops invaded; shops, courts and theatres closed.
Q 26What nickname did Thoré-Bürger give Vermeer for his mysterious biography?
The Sphinx of Delft
Until the 19th century only a few registers and documents recorded his life.
Q 27How many Vermeer works did the record-breaking 2023 Rijksmuseum show bring together?
28
More than 650,000 visitors made it the museum's most visited exhibition ever.
Q 28Which painting did Salvador Dalí copy and pit against a rhinoceros?
The Lacemaker
Dalí painted his version on commission from collector Robert Lehman.
Q 29Who was the wealthy Delft patron who bought much of Vermeer's output?
Pieter van Ruijven
His wife Maria de Knuijt was named the main patron by the Rijksmuseum's 2023 curators.
Q 30What trade did Hendrick van Buyten, who held Vermeer paintings as collateral, follow?
Baker
French visitor Balthasar de Monconys was sent to him in 1663 when Vermeer had nothing to show.