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
Pieter Nuyts University of Leiden and gaining a doctorate in philosophy, he returned to Middelburg to work in his father's trading company. In 1613, Pieter Nuyts, who was staying in Leiden with the famous Orientalist Erpenius, is known to have met with the Moroccan envoy in the Low Countries Al-Hajari. Al-Hajari wrote for him an entry in Pieter's "Album Amicorum" stating: In 1620, Pieter married Cornelia Jacot, also a child of Antwerp émigrés, who was to bear four of his children—Laurens (born around 1622), Pieter (1624) and the twins Anna Cornelia and Elisabeth (1626). In 1626 he entered service with the Dutch