A Dutch Golden Age painter of the Baroque period who specialised in domestic interior scenes of middle class life. Although moderately successful in his lifetime, he seems never to have been particularly wealthy, leaving his wife and children in debt at his death, perhaps because he produced relatively few paintings. He worked slowly and with great care, using bright colours and sometimes expensive pigments, with a preference for cornflower blue and yellow. He is particularly renowned for his masterly treatment and use of light in his work. Almost all his paintings are apparently set in two smallish rooms in his house in Delft. They show the same furniture and decorations in various arrangements and they often portray the same people, mostly women.