Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found, a revelatory biography by acclaimed art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon, persuasively addresses the two great unresolved questions about Vermeer: Why did he paint his pictures, and what do they mean?

One spring day in 1683, a notary’s clerk in Delft entered the home of the late Magdalena Pieters van Ruijven and stumbled on one of the wonders of the 17th-century world: 20 paintings by Johannes Vermeer. How had this one Dutchwoman come to possess the majority of the master’s work? And why have these images - among the most beautiful, even sublime, in the history of art - defied explanation for so long?

Following new leads and drawing on freshly uncovered evidence from Dutch archives, Graham-Dixon presents a dramatic and transformative new interpretation of the artist’s life and work, one which upends Vermeer’s enigmatic reputation and depicts him instead as a pioneer of the early Enlightenment.

Graham-Dixon is one of the leading art critics in the English-speaking world. He has presented numerous landmark series on art for the BBC and other independent outlets.