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Comment by tivert | Hacker News Reader

> including a rare Vermeer

What does this mean? Wasn't Vermeer a painter, and therefore all of his works were one of a kind (unless he painted copies)?

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Vermeer made only low dozens of paintings as opposed to, say, Monet, who made thousands, so likely they just mean something like “including one of Vermeer’s paintings, which are rare”

I'd read this as "rare because it is a Vermeer" rather than "rare for* a Vermeer".

It's just the opposite of a well-done Vermeer.

Those are the ones people pour ketchup on, I understand, a scandalous activity.

You sound like a fun person to stop to ask if you have any dijon mustard.

Many of the “majors” had a factory in which the “master” or headline figure might sketch out a painting, have it filled out by someone else, and then perhaps be finished off by the master. Sometimes multiple versions of the same painting were produced.

The Vermeers and Van Goughs didn’t have all that infrastructure (and Vermeer painted little, or at least little survives)

And he only painted about 35 works it seems, which basically means all are rare.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_paintings_by_Johanne...

Vermeer is the "shiny Pokemon card" of painters. Some museum recently announced they'd gathered a temporary collection of 20-odd Vermeers. Tickets for the show were sold out within minutes - a year ahead of time. Normally if you wanted to assemble a "complete collection" of Vermeers you've seen, you'd have to travel to like 10 different countries. Guys online talking about having no hesitation paying for a ten hour flight and two-day vacation for the sole reason of seeing this exhibit.

> Some museum recently announced they'd gathered a temporary collection of 20-odd Vermeers.

That would be Rijks in 2023[0], they had 28 Vermeers on display, tickets sold out within two months, half a year ahead of time.

[0] https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/whats-on/exhibitions/vermeer

There's only ~34 paintings firmly attributed to Vermeer, and - fun fact - 11 of them are on 5th Avenue in New York (between The Met and The Frick).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_paintings_by_Johannes_...

5 + 3 = 8 are supposed to be on the Fifth, with additional 4 in Washington, DC, unless there's some exhibition going on currently that I'm unaware of.

Oops, you're right - I counted w/ Ctrl-F and that's not accurate with references.

I dont know about the details of this particular painting, but Rarity here could refer to something like the type of paint used, the size, or even the subject matter or time period.

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