Johannes Vermeer

The blue in her jacket is ultramarine — ground lapis lazuli that reportedly cost more than gold at the time. Not the obvious choice for a plain house dress, if that's what this even is.

According to what I've read, nobody's ever identified who she actually was — this is what's called a 'tronie,' a study of a face or expression rather than a portrait of a real sitter. There's apparently ongoing debate over whether that earring is even a real pearl, since a stone that size would've cost a fortune at the time.

Views across the water like this were a whole genre in Holland at the time — a way of showing off a town and the trade money running through it, according to Wikipedia. This is apparently the only cityscape he ever bothered with; nearly everything else of his is one or two people in a room.

Man, woman, glass of wine in a tidy room — this was a whole genre in the Netherlands, and buyers at the time apparently read it straight off as a warning about where the drinking was heading. There's said to be a figure in the stained glass holding a set of reins, which stood for holding yourself back.

Apparently this was the first of his paintings to ever reach America — some collector picked it up in Paris for about $800, back when almost nobody had heard of him.

This one's sometimes read as a stand-in for painting itself - the model's laurel wreath, trumpet and book are meant to be Clio, the muse of history. Whoever made it, from what I can find, held onto this one for his whole life and never sold it, even when money was tight.

They say she's technically a kitchen maid, not a dairy worker — the milk here is just breakfast, not her job. It's been called one of the finest paintings of everyday life there is, though I'm never sure who gets to decide that.

This one apparently started life under a different name — an auction catalogue in 1696 just called it 'a merry company in a room.' It's also one of only three paintings he actually signed and dated, which is a strange thing to bother with for a scene like this one.