Vermeer died with 11 children and debts; his widow paid creditors in paintings and petitioned for bankruptcy

The Franco-Dutch War cut the art market. Vermeer took losses on the paintings he dealt in and could not sell his own. In 1675 he borrowed money in Amsterdam by using his mother-in-law Maria Thins's name without authority. He died that December. He and his wife, Catharina Bolnes, had eleven children; ten were under age. In April 1676 Catharina, blaming the war, petitioned for bankruptcy. She paid some debts with paintings or pledged them as security. A baker, Hendrick van Buyten, held two paintings against an unpaid bread bill of 617 guilders^†. Maria Thins received The Art of Painting in return for supporting the family. The microscopist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek was appointed trustee of the estate and tried to sell the painting for the creditors^†. Thins changed her will to support her grandchildren and keep her estate from Catharina's creditors. The Art of Painting was bought by Adolf Hitler in 1940^† and hangs in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna in 2026^†.