View source for The Art of Painting

'''The Art of Painting''' is a c. 1666 oil on canvas by the Dutch master [[Johannes Vermeer]]. It depicts an artist at his easel painting a model dressed as Clio, muse of history, in a Dutch interior hung with a map of the Low Countries.

Widely read as an allegory of painting itself, it is considered one of Vermeer's most ambitious compositions. The [[Kunsthistorisches Museum]] in [[Vienna]] has held it since 1946.