Why was Johannes Vermeer not widely famous during his lifetime?

Johannes Vermeer was not widely famous during his lifetime primarily because his creative output was small and his paintings were collected by only a limited group of local patrons, mostly within his native city of Delft.12

While he was respected within his local community—even serving as the head of the painters' guild in 1662—his reach did not extend to a broader public until the 19th century. During that period, the French critic Étienne-Joseph-Théophile Thoré (writing under the pseudonym William Bürger) published enthusiastic descriptions of Vermeer’s work, which helped spark widespread interest in the artist.123

Before this reassessment, many of his paintings were either admired only by a small circle of connoisseurs or were mistakenly attributed to other, more prolific Dutch artists of the era.2