Who rediscovered Vermeer's work in the 19th century, including 'Girl with a Pearl Earring'?

Théophile Thoré-Bürger rediscovered Vermeer’s work in the 19th century, including the painting later known as Girl with a Pearl Earring.

Thoré-Bürger was a French journalist and art critic who championed overlooked Dutch painters. Writing under the name William Bürger, he published influential articles in the 1860s that brought Vermeer’s quiet interior scenes back to scholarly and public attention.

The painting itself had a separate rediscovery history. It was sold in The Hague in 1881, when Victor de Stuers recognized it as a Vermeer and advised Arnoldus Andries des Tombe to buy it for two guilders and thirty cents. At the time, its surface was darkened and its attribution was not widely established.

A common mix-up is to credit Thoré-Bürger personally with identifying the specific Girl in 1881. More precisely, he revived Vermeer’s reputation and helped create the climate in which later collectors and experts recognized individual works. Des Tombe bequeathed the painting to the Mauritshuis, where it entered the collection in 1902.