As I’ve written elsewhere: “Except for his earliest work, there were no grand subjects in Vermeer, and very little else but a room and a window; tiled floor and tapestries and carpeted tables; maps and light and exactitude; liquid, lace, poured milk, lute strings and the weighing of pearls; the reproduction by brush and color of glass, a glass of wine, stained glass, and light. A human being not so far in the past had actually spent his entire life painting a room and reproducing light, juggling the furniture and the items on the walls and the clothes.” And that he did so in a time of such upheaval is even more astonishing, that peace was found in the same room, a window on the left: