Donald Stone reviews Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry, on view at the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin through September 17, 2017 and the National Gallery of Art, Washington from October 22, 2017 – January 21, 2018.

Stone writes: “The organisers of the latest exhibition … want us to see Vermeer alongside his contemporaries who, in their depictions of everyday life, ‘frequently drew inspiration from each other’s works and tried to surpass them in verisimilitude, technical prowess and aesthetic appeal'”… But, Stone argues, the [other Dutch genre painters] “painted for their time; [Vermeer] painted for all time.”