Each week, we scour the internet for the most significant, surprising, and outrageous art news—helping you stay informed (and sound smart). Have a suggestion? Let us know on social media (@meetmeural) with the tag #thisweekinartnews. (See all installments.)

1. Understanding Vermeer’s Mysteries, beyond “Girl with a Pearl Earring” by Alina Cohen, Artsy

We’ve already explored the ambiguity that helped make Girl with a Pearl Earring famous. Now, Artsy has deftly summed up all the questions surrounding the great Dutch Old Master, of whom surprisingly little is known. We don’t know how Vermeer learned to paint, if he actually painted all the works attributed to him, how he died, and even how he painted so well. Many have even speculated his technique was abetted by the use of technology, like a camera obscura. The article offers no easy answers and is all the more interesting for it.

2. “Inside Hushed Museum Hallways, a Rumble Over Pay Grows Louder” by Elizabeth A. Harris and Robin Pogrebin, The New York Times

We’ve reported on this story before, and now it’s reached the pages of the Times. This isn’t to say the battle has been won, but if there’s one thing art institutions care about, it’s press and the public’s perception of them. With even more art workers contributing to the anonymous salary spreadsheet, it’s becoming ever more apparent just how wide the discrepancy is between the big bucks that surround the art world and the people actually doing the heavy lifting. We’re sure that this won’t be the last we hear of the story.

3. “Always the Model, Never the Artist” by Madison Mainwaring, The Paris Review.

“‘It’s annoying they’re not men,’ Édouard Manet wrote to fellow artist Henri Fantin-Latour, after meeting Berthe and Edma Morisot, two sisters from the Parisian upper crust who were promising painters.” Thus begins The Paris Review’s wonderful piece on Berthe Morisot, an Impressionist artist who never got her due, no doubt because of her gender. This is what Manet meant; he foresaw that the sisters had too much talent for the future that awaited them: a lack of recognition. Manet was enthralled by Morisot as both an artist and a subject, hence the title of the article.

4. “The 8 Most Embarrassing Art-Heist Fails of All Time, From an Insanely Obvious Dalí Switcheroo to the Getaway Van That Wouldn’t Gogh” by Katie White, Artnet

We’ll always be a sucker for a good (or bad) heist story, and now we have eight in one article. Artnet has put together a range of “fails,” from bad forgeries to thieves inspired by Oceans 11 to a profound lack of security (including “a handwritten note which read, ‘We didn’t intend to steal these paintings, just to highlight the woeful security’”). We have a feeling there’s a lot more than eight in the history of bumbling thieves and foolish grifters.