According to the movie "Tim's Vermeer", at least one Vermeer (The Music Lesson) is in Buckingham palace and not generally accessible to the public. How do you get to see that one?
It is in the Queen's collection but it does go on display. When I was squiring visiting family around the city we decided to do the palace tour and I was pleasantly surprised to turn a corner and see it on display right in front of me. This was only a few months after watching Tim's Vermeer so it was fun having to explain to the people with my why I was so excited to see it on display.
If you plan ahead and time your visit right you too can see it in person.
A neat but sorta terrible documentary. The central claim is that Vermeer absolutely must have used a camera lucida because his detail would otherwise be impossible. In particular I remember the 'expert' claiming that a certain smooth gradation was impossible to paint without optical tools. Maybe for a modernist like Hockney, but there are painters with academic training who achieve that kind of work without optical tools.
I'm not saying Vermeer didn't experiment with such tools, but the claims to their criticality in his process are a joke.
Deeply entertaining movie though. I feel like whether or not Vermeer actually used the presented methods isn't really even the point. It's a lovely deep dive on one guys obsession with trying to recreate a Vermeer.
As someone has actually done and made a website about:
https://jlord.us/vermeer/about.html