Vermeer, Jan or Johannes, 1632–75, Dutch genre and landscape painter. He was born in Delft, where he spent his entire life. He was also known as Vermeer of Delft and as Jan or Johannes van der...

Delftware. The earliest delftware was a faience, a heavy, brown earthenware with opaque white glaze and polychrome decoration, made in the late 16th cent. Some of the earliest imitations of Ch...

Fabritius, Carel, 1622–54, Dutch painter; pupil and outstanding follower of Rembrandt. His early death in the explosion of a powder magazine at Delft cut short a career of great promise. Among...

Mierevelt, Miereveld, or Miereveldt, Michiel Janszen van, 1567–1641, Dutch portrait painter. He was court painter to the house of Orange, working chiefly in Delft and at The Hague. Mierevelt h...

South Holland, Dutch Zuidholland, province (1994 pop. 3,313,200), c.1,085 sq mi (2,810 sq km), W Netherlands, bounded by the North Sea in the west. The Hague is the capital; other cities inclu...

Hooch or Hoogh, Pieter de, b. c.1629, d. after 1677, Dutch genre painter. He worked in Delft, Leiden, and Amsterdam, painting intimate interiors that may have been influenced by those of Verme...

Leeuwenhoek, Antony van, 1632–1723, Dutch student of natural history and maker of microscopes, b. Delft. His use of lenses in examining cloth as a draper's apprentice probably led to his inter...

Khan, Abdul Qadeer (A. Q. Khan), 1936–, Pakistani metallurgical engineer, often called the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, b. Bhopal, India. He moved (1952) to Pakistan and studied at the D....

Episcopius, Simon, 1583–1643, Dutch Protestant theologian, whose original name was Biscop, Bischop, or Bisschop. Episcopius accepted the teachings of Jacobus Arminius and was a leader of the A...

Jacqueline, 1401–36, countess of Hainaut, Holland, and Zeeland (1417–33). The daughter and heiress of William IV, duke of Bavaria and count of Hainaut, Holland, and Zeeland, and of Margaret of...