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.