Milkmaid

A milkmaid (or milk maid) is a girl or woman employed to milk dairy cows. She also used the milk to prepare dairy products such as cream, butter, and cheese. The term milkmaid is not the female equivalent of milkman in the sense of one who delivers milk to the consumer; it is the female equivalent of milkman in the sense of cowman.

"As smooth as a milk maid's skin"[link]

The expression "as smooth as a milk maid's skin" means exceptionally smooth.

This phrase came about as a result of exposure to cowpox, which causes no serious symptoms, but does convey a partial immunity to the disfiguring (and often fatal) disease smallpox. Thus, milkmaids lacked the "pockmarked" complexion common to smallpox survivors. This observation led to the development of the first vaccine.^[1]

Cultural references[link]

• The legend of the Dun Cow and the milkmaid who guided the monks of Lindisfarne carrying the body of Saint Cuthbert to the site of the present city of Durham in 995 AD.
• The eponymous heroine of Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles works as a milkmaid.
• There is a famous painting by Johannes Vermeer entitled The Milkmaid (ca. 1658). Aelbert Cuyp, another Dutch artist, created the drawing known as A Milkmaid (ca. 1640–1650).
• The California native flower commonly called Milkmaids is named for its resemblance to the hat often worn by milkmaids.
• Kid Harpoon has a song called Milkmaid; the music video features actress Juno Temple.
• The 12 days of Christmas' 8th day mentions a maid-a-milking aka milk maid.
• The Philippines has a condensed milk brand called Milkmaid, a product of Alaska Milk Corporation.

See also[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Milkmaids

• Maid
• Nursemaid
• Wet nurse

References[link]

This job-, occupation-, or vocation-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Zoe Saldana
Saldana at the 82nd Academy Awards, 2010
Born	Zoe Yadira Saldaña Nazario (1978-06-19) June 19, 1978 (age 34) Passaic, New Jersey, US[1][2]
Nationality	American
Other names	Zoe Yadira Zaldana Nazario
Ethnicity	Dominican, Puerto Rican
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1999–present
Partner	Keith Britton (2000–2011)
Parents	Aridio Saldaña (d. c:a 1987)[3] Asalia Nazario
Website
www.zoesaldana.com

Zoe Saldana ( /sælˈdænə/ sal-DAN-ə; born June 19, 1978), sometimes stylized Zoë Saldaña, is an American actress. She had her breakthrough role in the 2000 film Center Stage and later gained prominence for her roles as Anamaria in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Uhura in the 2009 film Star Trek, and a starring role as Neytiri in James Cameron's Avatar. She also had a lead role in the action film Colombiana and the 2002 film Crossroads.

Early life[link]

Saldana was born Zoe Yadira Saldaña Nazario^[4][5] or Zoe Yadira Saldana Nazario^[1] in Passaic, New Jersey.^[2][6] Her father, Aridio Saldaña, was Dominican, and her mother, Asalia Nazario, is a Dominican of half Dominican and half Puerto Rican descent. Her first languages are Spanish and English. She spent the majority of her early childhood growing up in Queens, New York. After her father died in a car accident when she was only nine years old, Saldaña moved to the Dominican Republic with her mother. There, Saldana discovered her love of dance and soon enrolled in the ECOS Espacio de Danza Academy; she studied ballet, jazz, and modern Latin dance.^[2][3][7] The family returned to Queens after her sophomore year in high school.

At age 17, she began performing with the Faces theater troupe, which put on plays geared towards providing positive messages for teens, via themes dealing with issues such as substance abuse and sex. Concurrently, she performed with the New York Youth Theater; her appearance in their production of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat led a talent agency to recruit her. Her previous dance training, and her acting experience, helped her land her first big screen role as Eva, the talented and headstrong ballet dancer in the 2000 film Center Stage.^[2][3]

Career[link]

Zoe Saldana in 2009

Zoe Saldana was still a member of Faces when she gained exposure in an episode of Law & Order (titled "Merger") which first aired in 1999.^[8] She left school after Center Stage, subsequently appearing in the Britney Spears vehicle Crossroads (2002) and the comedy-drama Drumline (2002). She played the pirate Anamaria in the 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, and has appeared in a number of television shows and movies, including The Terminal (2004) and Guess Who (2005) with Ashton Kutcher.

Zoe Saldana and Anand Bhatt at the 2011 Latin Grammys

Saldana was also the lead in the video for Juan Luis Guerra's song "La llave de mi corazón", and played Uhura in the 2009 film Star Trek.^[9] In 2009, she played Neytiri, the Na'vi princess, in James Cameron's Avatar, a role that gave her much publicity and recognition, and therefore presenting her more opportunities to work in big commercial films^{[citation needed]}.

She is the only actress to have three movies in the box office top 20 for three consecutive weeks. These movies are Avatar, The Losers, and Death at a Funeral.^{[citation needed]}

In August 2010, Saldana's television ad for Calvin Klein's "Envy" line debuted.^[10] In 2011, she starred in the crime drama movie Colombiana.

Personal life[link]

In June 2010, Saldana became engaged to Keith Britton, an actor and CEO of My Fashion Database.^[11] In November 2011, it was confirmed that Saldana and Britton had amicably ended their relationship after eleven years together.^[12]

Saldana is a celebrity supporter of FINCA International, a microfinance organization.^[13]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• "Zoe Saldana Shines on ESSENCE's April Cover". Essence. March 9, 2010. http://www.essence.com/2010/03/10/zoe-saldana-shines-on-essences-april-cov/. Retrieved 2011-10-09. 
• Sandell, Laurie (March 1, 2010). "Zoë Saldana: The Most Elegant Member of the Glam New Guard". Glamour (Condé Nast). http://www.glamour.com/magazine/2010/03/zoe-saldana-the-most-elegant-member-of-the-glam-new-guard. Retrieved 2011-10-09. 

External links[link]

Find more about Zoe Saldana on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Images and media from Commons

• Official website
• Zoe Saldana on Twitter
• Zoe Saldana on Facebook
• Zoe Saldana at the Internet Movie Database
• Zoe Saldana at AllRovi
• Zoe Saldana at Rotten Tomatoes
• Zoë Saldana at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)

Johannes Vermeer
The Procuress, c. 1656 - the figure on the left has been called Vermeer's self portrait.[1]
Born	Baptized (1632-10-31)31 October 1632 Delft, Dutch Republic (now Netherlands)
Died	15 December 1675(1675-12-15) (aged 43) Delft, Dutch Republic (now Netherlands)
Nationality	Dutch
Field	Painting
Training	Carel Fabritius?
Movement	Dutch Golden Age Baroque
Works	34 works have been universally attributed to him[2]
Influenced by	Carel Fabritius, Leonaert Bramer, Dirck van Baburen?

Johannes, Jan or Johan Vermeer (Dutch pronunciation: [joˈɦɑnəs jɑn vərˈmɪːr];1632 – December 1675) was a Dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle class life. Vermeer was a moderately successful provincial genre painter 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.^[3]

Vermeer 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.^[4]

Vermeer painted mostly domestic interior scenes. As Koning points out: "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".^[5]

Recognized during his lifetime in Delft and The Hague, his modest celebrity gave way to obscurity after his death; he was barely mentioned in Arnold Houbraken's major source book on 17th century Dutch painting (Grand Theatre of Dutch Painters and Women Artists), and was thus omitted from subsequent surveys of Dutch art for nearly two centuries.^[6][7] In the 19th century Vermeer was rediscovered by Gustav Friedrich Waagen and Théophile Thoré-Bürger, who published an essay attributing sixty-six pictures to him, although only thirty-four paintings are universally attributed to him today.^[2] Since that time Vermeer's reputation has grown, and he is now acknowledged as one of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age.

Life[link]

Delft in 1652, by cartographer Willem Blaeu

Relatively little is known about Vermeer's life. He was baptized in Delft on 31 October 1632 as Joannis, and buried in the same city under the name Jan on 15 December 1675. He seems to have been exclusively devoted to his art, living out his life in the city of Delft. The only sources of information are some registers, a few official documents and comments by other artists; it was for this reason that Thoré Bürger named him "The Sphinx of Delft".^[8]

Youth[link]

On 31 October 1632, Johannes was baptized in the Reformed Church.^[9][10] His father, Reijnier Janszoon, was a middle-class worker of silk or caffa (a mixture of silk and cotton or wool).^{[Note 1]} As an apprentice in Amsterdam, Reijnier lived on fashionable Sint Antoniesbreestraat, then a street with many resident painters. In 1615 he married Digna Baltus. The couple moved to Delft and had a daughter, Gertruy, who was baptized in 1620.^{[Note 2]} In 1625 Reijnier was involved in a fight with a soldier named Willem van Bylandt, who died from his wounds five months later.^[11] Around this time Reijnier began dealing in paintings. In 1631 he leased an inn called "The Flying Fox". In 1641 he bought a larger inn on the market square, named after the Flemish town "Mechelen". The acquisition of the inn constituted a considerable financial burden.^{[Huerta 1]} When Vermeer's father died in October 1652, Vermeer assumed operation of the family's art business.

Marriage and family[link]

View of Delft (1660–61) "He took a turbulent reality, and made it look like Heaven on earth." ^[12]

In April 1653 Johannes Reijniersz Vermeer married a Catholic girl, Catharina Bolenes (Bolnes). The blessing took place in a nearby and quiet village Schipluiden.^{[Note 3]} For the groom it was a good match. His mother-in-law, Maria Thins, was significantly wealthier than he, and it was probably she who insisted Vermeer convert to Catholicism before the marriage on 5 April.^{[Note 4]} Some scholars doubt that Vermeer became Catholic, but one of his paintings, Allegory of Catholic Faith,^[13] made between 1670 and 1672, placed less emphasis on the artists’ usual naturalistic concerns, and more on religious symbolic applications, including the sacrament of the Eucharist, which was scorned by the Protestant order at the time. Walter Liedtke in Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art suggests it was made for a learned and devout Catholic patron, perhaps for his schuilkerk, or "hidden church."^{[Liedtke 1]} So, whether it represents Vermeer’s own beliefs or only those of his patron is left to speculation. At some point the couple moved in with Catharina's mother, who lived in a rather spacious house at Oude Langendijk, almost next to a hidden Jesuit church.^{[Note 5]} Here Vermeer lived for the rest of his life, producing paintings in the front room on the second floor. His wife gave birth to 14 children, four of whom were buried before being baptized, but were registered as "child of Johan Vermeer".^{[Note 6]} From wills written by relatives, the names of ten of Vermeer's children are known: Maria, Elisabeth, Cornelia, Aleydis, Beatrix, Johannes, Gertruyd, Franciscus, Catharina, and Ignatius.^{[Montias 1]} Several of these names carry a religious connotation, and it is likely that the youngest, Ignatius, was named after the founder of the Jesuit order.^{[Note 7]}

Career[link]

The Milkmaid (c. 1658)

The Astronomer (c. 1668)

It is unclear where and with whom Vermeer apprenticed as a painter. Speculation that Carel Fabritius may have been his teacher is based upon a controversial interpretation of a text written in 1668 by the printer Arnold Bon. Art historians have found no hard evidence to support this.^{[Montias 2]} The local authority, Leonaert Bramer, acted as a friend but their style of painting is rather different.^[14] Liedtke suggests Vermeer taught himself, using information from one of his father's connections.^{[Liedtke 2]} Some scholars think Vermeer was trained under the Catholic painter Abraham Bloemaert. Vermeer's style is similar to that of some of the Utrecht Carravagists, whose works are depicted as paintings-within-paintings in the backgrounds of several of his compositions.^{[Note 8]} In Delft, Vermeer probably competed with Pieter de Hooch and Nicolaes Maes, who produced genre works in a similar style.

On 29 December 1653, Vermeer became a member of the Guild of Saint Luke, a trade association for painters. The guild's records make clear that Vermeer did not pay the usual admission fee. It was a year of plague, war and economic crisis; Vermeer was not alone in experiencing difficult financial circumstances. In 1654 the city suffered the terrible explosion known as the Delft Thunderclap, which destroyed a large section of the city.^[15] In 1657 he might have found a patron in the local art collector Pieter van Ruijven, who lent him some money. In 1662 Vermeer was elected head of the guild and was reelected in 1663, 1670, and 1671, evidence that he (like Bramer) was considered an established craftsman among his peers. Vermeer worked slowly, probably producing three paintings a year, and on order. When Balthasar de Monconys visited him in 1663 to see some of his work, the diplomat and the two French clergymen who accompanied him were sent to Hendrick van Buyten, a baker, who had a couple of his paintings as collateral.

In 1671 Gerrit van Uylenburgh organised the auction of Gerrit Reynst's collection and offered thirteen paintings and some sculptures to Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg. Frederick accused them of being counterfeits and had sent twelve back on the advice of Hendrick Fromantiou.^[16] Van Uylenburg then organized a counter-assessment, asking a total of 35 painters to pronounce on their authenticity, including Jan Lievens, Melchior de Hondecoeter, Gerbrand van den Eeckhout and Johannes Vermeer.

In 1672 a severe economic downturn (the "Year of Disaster") struck the Netherlands, after Louis XIV and a French army invaded the Dutch Republic from the south (known as the Franco-Dutch War). During the Third Anglo-Dutch War an English fleet and two allied German bishops attacked the country from the east causing more destruction. Many people panicked; courts, theaters, shops and schools were closed. Five years passed before circumstances improved. In the summer of 1675 Vermeer borrowed money in Amsterdam, using his mother-in-law as a surety.

In December 1675 Vermeer fell into a frenzy and, within a day and a half, died. He was buried in the Protestant Old Church on 15 December 1675. Catharina Bolnes attributed her husband's death to the stress of financial pressures. The collapse of the art market damaged Vermeer's business as both a painter and an art dealer. She, having to raise 11 children, asked the High Court to relieve her of debts owed to Vermeer's creditors.^{[Montias 3]} The Dutch microscopist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, who worked for the city council as a surveyor, was appointed trustee. The house, with eight rooms on the first floor, was filled with paintings, drawings, clothes, chairs, and beds. In his atelier there were two chairs, two painter's easels, three palettes, ten canvases, a desk, an oak pull table, a small wooden cupboard with drawers and "rummage not worthy being itemized".^{[Montias 4]} Nineteen of Vermeer's paintings were bequeathed to Catharina and her mother. The widow sold two more paintings to Hendrick van Buyten in order to pay off a substantial debt for delivered bread.

Vermeer had been a respected artist in Delft, but almost unknown outside his home town. The fact that a local patron, Pieter van Ruijven, purchased much of his output reduced the possibility of his fame spreading.^{[Note 9]} Several factors contributed to his limited oeuvre. Vermeer never had any pupils and therefore there was no school of Vermeer. His family obligations with so many children may have taken up much of his time as would acting as both an art-dealer and inn-keeper in running the family businesses. His time spent serving as head of the guild and his extraordinary precision as a painter may have also limited his output.

Style[link]

The Girl with the Wine Glass (c. 1659)

Girl With a Pearl Earring (1665), considered a Vermeer masterpiece

The Music Lesson or A Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman, c. 1662-65; Vermeer

A row of houses on the Market in Delft, with the inn Mechelen, but made circa 1730 by Leonard Schenk after a drawing by Abraham Rademaker

Like most painters of his time, Vermeer probably first executed his paintings tonally, using either only shades of gray ("grisaille"), or a limited palette of browns and grays ("dead coloring"), over which more saturated colors (reds, yellows and blues) were applied in the form of glazes. Vermeer produced transparent colours by applying paint to the canvas in loosely granular layers, a technique called pointillé (not to be confused with pointillism). No drawings have been positively attributed to Vermeer, and his paintings offer few clues to preparatory methods. David Hockney, among other historians and advocates of the Hockney–Falco thesis, has speculated that Vermeer used a camera obscura to achieve precise positioning in his compositions, and this view seems to be supported by certain light and perspective effects. The often-discussed sparkling pearly highlights in Vermeer's paintings have been linked to this possible use of a camera obscura, the primitive lens of which would produce halation. Exaggerated perspective can be seen in Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman (London, Royal Collection). Vermeer's interest in optics is also attested in this work by the accurately observed mirror reflection above the lady at the virginals.

However, the extent of Vermeer's dependence upon the camera obscura is disputed by historians. There is no historical evidence. The detailed inventory of the artist's belongings drawn up after his death does not include a camera obscura or any similar device. Scientific evidence is limited to inference. Philip Steadman has found six Vermeer paintings that are precisely the right size if they were inside a camera obscura where the back wall of his studio was where the images were projected.^[17]

There is no other seventeenth-century artist who early in his career employed, in the most lavish way, the exorbitantly expensive pigment lapis lazuli, or natural ultramarine. Vermeer not only used this in elements that are naturally of this colour; the earth colours umber and ochre should be understood as warm light within a painting's strongly-lit interior, which reflects its multiple colours onto the wall. In this way, he created a world more perfect than any he had witnessed.^{[Liedtke 3]} This working method most probably was inspired by Vermeer’s understanding of Leonardo’s observations that the surface of every object partakes of the colour of the adjacent object.^[18] This means that no object is ever seen entirely in its natural colour.

A comparable but even more remarkable, yet effectual, use of natural ultramarine is in The Girl with a Wineglass. The shadows of the red satin dress are underpainted in natural ultramarine, and, owing to this underlying blue paint layer, the red lake and vermilion mixture applied over it acquires a slightly purple, cool and crisp appearance that is most powerful.

Even after Vermeer’s supposed financial breakdown following the so-called rampjaar (year of disaster) in 1672, he continued to employ natural ultramarine generously, such as in Lady Seated at a Virginal. This could suggest that Vermeer was supplied with materials by a collector, and would coincide with John Michael Montias’ theory of Pieter van Ruijven being Vermeer’s patron.

His works are largely genre pieces and portraits, with the exception of two cityscapes and two allegories. His subjects offer a cross-section of seventeenth-century Dutch society, ranging from the portrayal of a simple milkmaid at work, to the luxury and splendour of rich notables and merchantmen in their roomy houses. Besides these subjects, religious, poetical, musical, and scientific comments can also be found in his work.

Works[link]

Only three paintings are dated: The Procuress (1656, Dresden, Gemäldegalerie), The Astronomer (1668, Paris, Louvre), and The Geographer (1669, Frankfurt, Städelsches Kunstinstitut).

Vermeer's mother-in-law, Maria Thins, owned Dirck van Baburen's 1622 oil-on-canvas Procuress (or a copy of it), which appears in the background of two of Vermeer's paintings. The same subject was also painted by Vermeer. After creating his own The Procuress, almost all of Vermeer's paintings are of contemporary subjects in a smaller format, with a cooler palette dominated by blues, yellows and grays. Practically all of his surviving works belong to this period; usually domestic interiors with one or two figures lit by a window on the left. They are characterized by a serene sense of compositional balance and spatial order, unified by a pearly light. Mundane domestic or recreational activities become thereby imbued with a poetic timelessness (e.g. Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, Dresden, Gemäldegalerie). Vermeer's two townscapes, View of Delft (The Hague, Mauritshuis) and A street in Delft (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum), have also been attributed to this period.

A few of his paintings show a certain hardening of manner and are generally thought to represent his late works. From this period come The Allegory of Faith (c 1670, New York, Metropolitan Museum) and The Love Letter (c 1670, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum).

Legacy[link]

• Upon the rediscovery of Vermeer's work in the 19th century, several prominent Dutch artists, including Simon Duiker, modelled their style on his work.
• Vermeer's View of Delft features in a pivotal sequence of Marcel Proust's The Captive.
• Salvador Dalí, with great admiration for Vermeer, painted his own version of The Lacemaker and pitted large copies of the original against a rhinoceros in some now-famous surrealist experiments. Dali also immortalized the Dutch Master in The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used As a Table, 1934.
• Han van Meegeren was a 20th-century Dutch painter who worked in the classical tradition. Motivated by a blend of aesthetic and financial reasons, van Meegeren became a master forger, creating and selling many new 'Vermeers' before being caught and tried.^[19]
• A Vermeer painting plays a key part of the dénouement in Agatha Christie's After the Funeral (1953).
• Peter Greenaway's film A Zed & Two Noughts (1985) contains a plot line about an orthopedic surgeon named Van Meegeren who stages highly exact scenes from Vermeer paintings in order to paint copies of them.
• Dutch composer Louis Andriessen based his opera, Writing to Vermeer (1997–98, libretto by Peter Greenaway), on the domestic life of Vermeer.
• Tracy Chevalier's novel Girl with a Pearl Earring and the film of the same name (2003) are named after the painting; they present a fictional account of its creation by Vermeer and his relationship with the model. The film was nominated for Oscars in cinematography, art direction, and costume design.
• Susan Vreeland's novel Girl in Hyacinthe Blue follows eight individuals with a relationship to a painting of Vermeer. The novel follows a reverse chronology from the current period to the time of Vermeer.
• The young adult novel Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett centers around the fictitious theft of Vermeer's A Lady Writing.
• 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 and globalization during the Dutch Golden Age.
• A 2010 Epsom Derby Favourite was named Jan Vermeer.^[20]
• The song "No one was like Vermeer" by Bostonian singer-songwriter Jonathan Richman pays tribute to Vermeer's painstaking technique.
• Bob Walkenhorst in his solo album "The Beginner" wrote a rockabilly song, "Jan Vermeer", which begins with "I wish I could dance like Jan Vermeer!"
• J.P. Smith's novel, The Discovery of Light, deals largely with Vermeer.

See also[link]

• Théophile Thoré-Bürger

References[link]

This article uses bare URLs for citations. Please consider adding full citations so that the article remains verifiable. Several templates and the Reflinks tool are available to assist in formatting. (Reflinks documentation) (April 2012)

Notes

Citations

Further reading

• Liedtke, Walter A. (2007). Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 0-300-12028-1. 

• Montias, John Michael (1991). Vermeer and His Milieu: A Web of Social History (reprint, illustrated ed.). Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-00289-7. 

• Huerta, Robert D. (2003). Giants of Delft: Johannes Vermeer and the Natural Philosophers: the Parallel Search for Knowledge During the Age of Discovery. Bucknell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8387-5538-9. 

• Kreuger, Frederik H. (2007). New Vermeer, Life and Work of Han van Meegeren. Rijswijk: Quantes. pp. 54, 218 and 220 give examples of Van Meegeren fakes that were removed from their museum walls. Pages 220/221 give an example of a non-Van Meegeren fake attributed to him. ISBN 978-90-5959-047-2. http://www.quantes.nl/uitgeverij.php?aut=4. Retrieved 21 September 2009. 
• Schneider, Nobert (1993). Vermeer. Cologne: Benedikt Taschen Verlag. ISBN 3-8228-6377-7. 
• Sheldon, Libby; Nicola Costaros (February 2006). "Johannes Vermeer’s ‘Young woman seated at a virginal". The Burlington Magazine (1235). 
• Steadman, Philip (2002). Vermmeer's Camera, the truth behind the masterpieces. Oxford University Press.  isbn= 0-19-280302-6
• Wadum, J. (1998). "Contours of Vermeer". In I. Gaskel and M. Jonker. Vermeer Studies. Studies in the History of Art. Washington/New Haven: Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, Symposium Papers XXXIII. pp. 201–223. .
• Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. (1981,1988). Jan Vermeer. New York: Abrams. ISBN 0-8109-1737-8. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Johannes Vermeer

• (Videos): Vermeer: Master of Light - at the National Gallery of Art, Washington
  • Part 1: Woman Holding a Balance
  • Part 2: The Music Lesson
  • Part 3: Girl with the Red Hat
  • Part 4: Camera Obscura
• Johannes Vermeer Biography, Style and Artwork
• Vermeer Exhibition 2008 commentary by Esmée Quodbach of the Center for the History of Collecting in America via the Frick Collection
• Vermeer's Woman Holding a Balance In-depth discussion of this painting in the National Gallery of Art along with discussion of the artist's life, conservation, illustration of related works
• Essential Vermeer, In-depth coverage of Vermeer's life, works, and environment
• Entry in Britannica encyclopaedia
• Virtual Vermeer, Familiar biography, interesting entries
• Van Meegeren's Fake Vermeers at Arttube (Museum Boijmans)
• Vermeercentrum, housed at the site of the former St. Lucas Guild in Delft. (The Vermeer Centre offers a visual voyage of discovery through the life, work and city of Johannes Vermeer.)
• Union List of Artist Names, Getty Vocabularies. ULAN Full Record Display for Jan Vermeer. Getty Vocabulary Program, Getty Research Institute. Los Angeles, California.
• Painting discovered in Vermeer

Nicole Richie
Richie In Store Appearance David Jones Photo Call 2012
Born	Nicole Camille Escovedo (1981-09-21) September 21, 1981 (age 30) Berkeley, California, U.S.
Occupation	Television personality, actress, fashion designer, author
Years active	2003–present
Spouse	Joel Madden (2010–present)
Children	2[1]
Website
www.nicolerichie.com

Nicole Camille Richie (born Nicole Camille Escovedo; September 21, 1981) is an American fashion designer, author, actress, singer and television personality.

Richie rose to prominence for her role in the Fox reality television series, The Simple Life which lasted five seasons. Afterwards she turned her focus on other projects including charity work and environmental issues. In November 2007 Richie and husband, Joel Madden, created "The Richie Madden Children's Foundation".^[2] She is currently one of the three mentors on NBC's Fashion Star.

Richie's personal life has also attracted media attention, including her dramatically thin appearance, driving under the influence arrests in 2003 and 2006, as well as her extensive drug abuse throughout her late teenage years and early twenties.

Early life[link]

Nicole Richie was born in Berkeley, California.^[3] Her biological father is Peter Michael Escovedo, a musician who played for a brief time with Lionel Richie, and her biological mother Karen was the executive assistant for her aunt Sheila E. At the age of three, her parents agreed to let her move in with Lionel Richie and Brenda Harvey because they could not afford to provide for her financially. "My parents were friends with Lionel," she told People in 2003. "They trusted that they would be better able to provide for me."^[4] Initially, Lionel Richie became her guardian.^[5] Lionel Richie and Brenda Harvey effectively raised Nicole as their daughter. She began attending weekly sessions with a psycho-therapist at age three, remaining in therapy throughout childhood.

Richie was legally adopted by Lionel and Brenda when she was nine years old. Shortly after the adoption was formalized, Lionel's affair with another woman became public knowledge.^[6] Lionel and Brenda went through a bitter, public split. As a result, they indulged Nicole's every whim. "Their way of making me happy was to say yes to everything I wanted, but I don't think a little girl should have that much freedom," said Richie in an interview with Vanity Fair.^[7] Following the divorce, Lionel remarried and gave Nicole two younger siblings; Myles (b. 1994) and Sofia (b. 1998).^[8] Richie has one godmother, Nancy Davis, daughter of Marvin Davis and mother of Brandon Davis. Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson were each Richie's godfathers.^[9] Jones said in a People magazine interview that he has "known Nicole Richie since she was a baby. She's a very smart girl".^[10]

In 1986, Richie attended The Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, California, where she met Paris Hilton. Richie graduated from Montclair College Preparatory School in 1999 and then attended the University of Arizona alongside Kourtney Kardashian and Luke Walton, where she studied Arts and Media. Richie did not have a definitive study plan in Arizona, and eventually dropped out after two years and returned to California.^[9]

Career[link]

Television[link]

In 2003, Richie and her then best friend Paris Hilton starred in the reality series The Simple Life, in which they lived for a month with a family in the rural community of Altus, Arkansas. The series premiere debuted on Fox on December 2, 2003, to thirteen million viewers, increasing Fox's Adults 18-49 rating to 79%.^[11] The series continued for a second and third season, and Richie achieved superstardom for her out-spoken, comedic persona.^{[citation needed]}

The show was subsequently cancelled by Fox after a dispute between Hilton and Richie, but it was subsequently aired by E! Entertainment Television for the fourth season, which was a hit for E!, drawing nearly one million viewers and a relatively unsuccessful fifth season.^[12] More complications arose during the production of a fifth season. Both Richie and Hilton faced major charges for DUI, and were at risk of serving jail time. Hilton was sentenced to 23 days in jail, though this was after production of the season had finished.^[13] Richie accepted a plea agreement and was sentenced to four days in jail, again after production had wrapped.^[14] Despite talks of a sixth season,^[15] the series finished its run at the end of the moderately unsuccessful fifth season.^[16][17]

In 2005, Nicole Richie made her acting debut in the comedic drama Kids in America. Richie has guest starred in television series including Eve, Six Feet Under and American Dreams, 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, and playing the recurring character Heather Chandler on Chuck.^[18] In July 2008, plans were announced to turn Richie's 2005 novel, The Truth About Diamonds, into a television series.^[19]

On January 1, 2010, it was announced that Richie would appear as a guest judge on Project Runway.^[20]

Richie is currently filming Fashion Star for NBC.

Writing[link]

In 2005, Richie wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, The Truth About Diamonds, which was released by Bharell Jackson Publishing. The novel is loosely based on her life, but is mostly fictional. It chronicles the life of Chloe Parker, the adopted daughter of a singer who makes her way through all of the popular nightclubs and parties in Hollywood while battling a drug addiction.^[21] In early January 2006, The Truth About Diamonds peaked at number #32 in Hardcover Fiction on The New York Times Best-Seller List.^[22]

Richie's second novel, Priceless, was released on September 28, 2010.^[23] It tells the story of a girl who loses everything and then learns about what really matters in life.^[24]

Fashion[link]

Richie's own personal style has become popular among fans and fashion critics and has led to her status as a fashion impresario and icon. She has been the face of Bongo Jeans and Jimmy Choo advertising campaigns. In April 2007, Richie announced plans to start a jewelry, accessories, and sunglasses line along with a perfume and style book.^[25] In October 2008, she debuted a jewelry line, House of Harlow 1960.^[26] The line became available at Kitson's online boutique.^[27] In Spring 2010, the line was extended to include apparel and shoes.^[28] In 2009, Richie joined maternity store A Pea in the Pod to create the new collection maternity clothes.^[29] The line was titled "Nicole" which had pieces that she would wear as an expectant mother.^[30] In February 2010, Richie expanded her fashion business with a women’s line called Winter Kate, her daughter's two middle names. The collection was inspired by timeless prints and shapes, beautiful paisley and florals.^[31]

In 2010, she won "Entrepreneur of the Year" for her House of Harlow 1960 brand at the Glamour Women of the Year Awards.^[32] House of Harlow 1960 was also nominated in the category "Celebrity Fashion Line" at the 2010 Teen Choice Awards.^[33] In July 2011, it was reported that Richie's House of Harlow 1960 line has unveiled a 14-piece handbag collection. The House of Harlow 1960 handbag collection will be available at Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom and Shopbop.com.^[34] In July 2011, it was announced that Richie would be one of the three mentors in NBC's new reality show Fashion Star alongside Jessica Simpson.^[35][36]

Music[link]

Richie made her musical debut in February 2005 with a live appearance on ABC's The View playing the piano.^[37] Although widely speculated that Richie is working on an album, she denied the rumors to People. She was quoted as saying, "I do eventually [want to record an album], but right now I have a lot on my plate".^[38] In February 2010, Richie was featured on the charity single "We Are the World 25 for Haiti". "I was four years old in a studio, watching my dad record "We Are the World" and today I get to do it again. Excited to help make a change," she later said of the experience.^[39]

In 2004, she auditioned for the part of Maureen in the popular Broadway hit, Rent, but did not get the part. In 2008, she was offered the lead role in the hit musical Chicago as Roxie Hart.^[40]

Personal life[link]

Richie and Joel Madden in March 2010

Family and relationships[link]

In April 2005, reports surfaced that Richie and longtime friend Paris Hilton were no longer speaking. Hilton commented: "It's no big secret that Nicole and I are no longer friends. Nicole knows what she did, and that's all I'm ever going to say about it."^[41] Neither Richie nor Hilton spoke publicly about the cause of the split, though it was speculated that the pair fell out due to Nicole showing one of Paris' homemade sex tapes to a group of their friends. They eventually reconciled in October 2006.^[42]

She dated DJ Adam Goldstein from 2003 to 2005, but broke up after a nine-month engagement.^[43] Richie was also briefly linked to childhood friend Brody Jenner of MTV's The Hills.^[44]

Richie began dating Good Charlotte lead singer Joel Madden in December 2006.^[45] They have two children: daughter Harlow Winter Kate Richie Madden (born January 11, 2008)^[46] and son Sparrow James Midnight Madden (born September 9, 2009).^[47] The couple confirmed their engagement in February 2010,^[48] and married on December 11, 2010.^[49] In February 2008, the first photos of Harlow were sold to People, who paid $1 million.^[50]

Health[link]

In early 2006, Richie made headlines for her dramatically thinner appearance, after spending two seasons of The Simple Life slightly heavier than her usual weight.^[51] In May she told Vanity Fair, "I know I'm too thin right now, so I wouldn't want any young girl looking at me and saying, 'That's what I want to look like.'"^[52] She also said, "I started seeing a nutritionist and a doctor. I was scared that it could be something more serious."^[53] During this time it was reported that she had also sought the help of a psychiatrist and a personal trainer.^[54] Later that year, in September, Richie stated "I am not anorexic. I am not bulimic. I do not have an eating disorder."^[54] On October 27, 2006, it was announced that Richie was seeking treatment for "an inability to put on weight," though it is not treatment for an eating disorder.^[54]

In March 2007, Richie was taken to the hospital for dehydration. On March 21, her representatives announced she was diagnosed with hypoglycemia.^[55]

Richie's December 2006 mug shot

Legal issues[link]

In February 2003, Richie was arrested in Malibu, California and was charged with possession of heroin while driving with a suspended driver's license.^[56]

On December 11, 2006, Richie was arrested by the California Highway Patrol after she failed a field sobriety test. She was charged with driving under the influence on State Route 134 in the Burbank/Glendale, California area. Several motorists had reported a black Mercedes-Benz G-Class entering the freeway on the exit ramp and travelling in the opposite traffic direction.^[57] She admitted to using marijuana and the narcotic Vicodin before the incident.^[57] On July 27, 2007, Richie was sentenced to four days in jail at the Century Regional Detention Center in Lynwood, California.^[58] However, she only served about 82 minutes of the sentence and was released at 16:37 PDT on August 23, 2007.^[59] A spokeswoman for the sheriff's department told People magazine that Richie "was released early due to overcrowding in the jail system. This is standard procedure for nonviolent offenders." After spending 82 minutes in jail, Richie was "Of course pleasantly surprised to be released so quickly," said her attorney.^[60]

Richie enrolled in an 18-month anti-drinking driver education program, according to papers filed with the Superior Court of California.^[61] On June 22, her probation was extended one year to March 2011 because she missed her anti-drinking driving class.^[62] However, Richie's probation was terminated early on December 29, 2010 after her lawyer presented details to the judge that Richie had completed all terms of her probation.^[63]

Charity[link]

In November 2007, Richie and partner Joel Madden created "The Richie Madden Children's Foundation".^[64] Richie, Joel and Benji Madden along with UNICEF held a fundraiser for the Tap Project in March 2009. They sold 143 water pumps to bring water directly to the villages and raised $100,000.^[65] Esprit donated 10% of all the sales on April 2, 2009 at their newly opened 3rd Street Promenade store to The Richie-Madden Children’s Foundation.^[66] The Richie-Madden Foundation specially designed "Cup with a Cause" for 7-Eleven. It was a part of their charity-focused coffee campaign in February 2010.^[67] During 2010 the Foundation worked together with Beyond Shelter, a non-profit organization devoted to providing shelter for homeless families in Los Angeles.^[68]

In May 2008, Richie and Madden shot a UNICEF public-service announcement to generate aid for the cyclone-devastated Myanmar.^[69] Richie and Madden have also written blogs on the UNICEF website and encouraged people to help children in need.^[70]

Richie has been a board member of the Environmental Media Association for several years and took part in their awareness program in May 2009.^[71] Each member "adopted" a school to raise awareness for the program and help students with environmental education. She participated in a charity hand-me-downs auction that started on the website handmedowns.com. The proceeds went directly to The Richie Madden Children’s Foundation to help bring more opportunities to children in the US and abroad.^[72]

Filmography[link]

Award nominations[link]

References[link]