Pieter van Ruijven had belonged to the Van Ruijvens, who had built up a large collection of paintings by Vermeer, three by Emanuel de Witte, four by Simon de Vlieger and one by Jan Porcellis. He is depicted as a predatory lecher in Tracy Chevalier's historical novel "Girl with a Pearl Earring" (1999), although there is absolutely no evidence of this. The 2003 film of the book also follows this characterization. Pieter van Ruijven Pieter Claesz. van Ruijven (Delft, 1624 – Delft, August 7, 1674) is best known as Johannes Vermeer's patron for the better part of the artist's career. Van Ruijven was
Johannes Vermeer relationship between Vermeer's paintings in the Mauritshuis in The Hague and the events being recounted in the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal in the same city. The song "No One Was Like Vermeer" from the 2008 album "Because Her Beauty Is Raw and Wild" by Boston singer-songwriter Jonathan Richman pays tribute to Vermeer's painstaking technique. Richman also references Vermeer in his song "Vincent Van Gogh" and both songs are frequently part of Richman's live performances. Historian Timothy Brook's "Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World" (2007) examines six of Vermeer's paintings for evidence of world trade