[3] According to art historian Emma Barker, cityscapes across water, which were popular in the Netherlands at the time, celebrated the city and its trade.

[4] Vermeer's View of Delft has been held in the Dutch Royal Cabinet of Paintings at the Mauritshuis in The Hague since its establishment in 1822.

[5] A technical analysis shows that Vermeer used calcite, lead white, yellow ochre, natural ultramarine, and madder lake pigments.

[6] The landscape was painted from an elevated position to the southeast of Delft, possibly the upper floor of the Mechelen tavern where the artist's studio was located.

[7] On the lower left side of the painting, five people are waiting to board a passenger barge to take them to Rotterdam, Schiedam, or Delfshaven.

[10] A camera obscura, meaning "dark chamber," was a closed room with a small hole covered with a convex lens through which light could pass, casting a reverse image onto the wall that the artist could then trace.

[10] In The Officer and the Laughing Girl, the man appears to be significantly larger than the woman, which could be a result of using a camera obscura.

Another piece of evidence pointing to Vermeer's use of a camera obscura is his detailed maps, which would be very difficult to reproduce without the aid of optical technology.

[10] Because of the diffused highlights painted on the buildings and in the water, art historian Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. believes that Vermeer did use a camera obscura to create View of Delft.

William II wanted to keep the soldiers who had fought in the war against the Spanish in case they decided to attack again, but the States General felt that the country was already in too much debt to afford a military.

The scene depicts the town after 40,000 kg of gunpowder exploded, killing hundreds of people including Carel Fabritius.

[18] Pieter Claeszoon van Ruijven, a lover of architectural paintings, commissioned View of Delft along with The Little Street.

The director of the Mauritshuis at the time, Johan Steengracht van Oostcapelle, instructed the minister not to bid on it as it would not fit in the cabinet.

[21] However, the king had it exhibited in the new Dutch Royal Cabinet of Paintings established at the Mauritshuis in The Hague, and not in Amsterdam as expected.

Before, Bergotte had taken inspiration from Vermeer's technique: "That's how I ought to have written ... My last books are too dry, I ought to have ... made my language precious in itself, like this little patch of yellow wall ('petit pan de mur jaune')".