We arrived late at Rotterdam, where was their annual marte or faire, so furnished with pictures (especially landskips and drolleries as they call those donnish representations) that I was amaz'd. . . .
When John Evelyn in 1641 thus recorded the flourishing artistic life of Holland, Jan Vermeer of Delft, who was to become the most finished realist of the Dutch School, was just nine years old. Last fortnight, visitors at a far greater fair—Queen Wilhelmina's Jubilee (TIME, Sept. 12)—found Rotterdam again furnished with pictures, and the greatest attraction of all was a painting by Jan Vermeer. Displayed among 450 Netherlands-owned masterpieces...
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