Johannes Vermeer lived 43 years, fathered fifteen children, worked as an art dealer to support them, and left behind approximately 36 paintings. The number is not certain — attribution disputes move a few canvases in and out — but the range has never extended far past 40 in either direction. For a professional painter of the Dutch Golden Age, this is an almost implausibly small body of work. His contemporary Jan Steen produced over 800 paintings.