Vermeer has always been considered the most elusive of great artists, but this work tracks him down in his home town. It takes the reader back to 17th-century Delft, and gives a portrait of Vermeer, the Protestant who married a prosperous Catholic girl and had 15 children, of whom 11 survived. The author makes use of the scholarly research that has accumulated in the last century, as well as recent findings, and then reaches beyond these facts to expose the hidden Vermeer. Vermeer died relatively young and left fewer than 40 pictures, many of these are masterpieces and the scientific expertise by which they were executed is brought under scrutiny. The author even goes so far as to examine Vermeer's effect on many creative and destructive people, including Proust and Hitler.