He was Rembrandt's most gifted student, and in Delft he may have taught a young man named Johannes Vermeer.

In March 1654, Carel Fabritius signed a tiny panel of a goldfinch chained to its perch. He was 32, and probably the finest painter of his generation.

Seven months later, on an October morning, the town gunpowder store on the edge of Delft blew up.

A full ton of black powder went off at once. A quarter of the city was flattened. The blast was heard fifteen kilometers away.

That little bird painting survived. Almost everything else he ever made did not.

And neither did he.

A museum in The Hague still keeps the goldfinch. A whole bestselling novel was later built around it.

The man who actually painted it is barely a name today.

He is one of ten artists I think you need to discover.

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