In 1696, twenty years after his death, certain of his works (forty in the catalogue) brought only 100 florins, pictures that to-day are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. And in 1719 the superb Milk Girl, now in the Rijks Museum, formerly from the Six Collection, was sold for 126 florins (it brought $100,000 when Mr. Six sold it to the museum), while at the same sale the mediocre Gerard Dou fetched 6,000 florins for a canvas. Even nowadays the public has not been converted to the idea of the greatness of Vermeer. Go any time of the day into the Mauritshuis at The Hague and you will always discover a crowd before that clumsy, stupid bull with the wooden legs, by no means Paul Potter's masterpiece, while the gem of The Hague gallery, the View of Delft, with its rich pate, its flowing rhythms, its clear daylight, seldom draws a large audience. And I do not doubt that only the propinquity of Rembrandt's Young Saskia to Vermeer's Merry Company (otherwise known as The Courtesan) in the Dresden gallery attracts an otherwise indifferent public. In 1696 there were 21 pictures of Vermeer sold at public auction in Amsterdam. Of these 21 the experts claim to have discovered 16. But the bother of the question is that 100 other pictures were also sold at the same time; furthermore, the sale is said to have taken place after the death of a venerable mediocrity, also named Vermeer, but hailing from Haarlem. (He died in 1691.) This confusion of names may have had something to do with the obscuring of the great Vermeer. But he had no vogue in 1696, as the prices at the sale prove only too well. Vanzype gives the list, and its importance in any research of the Vermeer pictures is paramount. Here are the 21 canvases that are extant, and the prices paid: No. 1--A young woman weighing gold, 155 florins; 2--A milk girl, 175 florins; 3--The portrait of the painter in his studio, 45 florins; 4--A young woman playing the guitar, 70 florins; 5--A gentleman in his chamber, 95 florins; 6--A young lady playing the clavecin, with a gentleman who listens, 30 florins; 7--A young woman taking a letter from her servant, 70 florins; 8--A servant who has drunk too much asleep at a table, 62 florins; 9--A merry company, 73 florins; 10--A young lady and a gentleman making music, 81 florins; 11--A soldier with a laughing girl, 44 florins; 12--A young lacemaker, 28 florins; 13--View of Delft, 200 florins; 14--A house at Delft, 72 florins; 15--A view of some houses, 48 florins; 16--A young woman writing, 63 florins; 17--A young woman, 30 florins; 18--Young woman at a clavecin, 42 florins; 19--A portrait in antique costume, 36 florins; 20 and 21--Two pendants, 34 florins.