John-Michael Montias, economist and expert on Vermeer

John-Michael Montias, one of the world's foremost scholars on the life of 17th-century Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer and professor emeritus of economics at Yale, died July 26 of complications from melanoma. He was 76.

Montias, who joined the Yale faculty in the late 1950s, was a specialist in the economic systems of the Soviet bloc. He researched the economies of many Eastern European countries during the 1960s and 1970s. During the Cold War, he served as a consultant to some of the highest officials of the U.S. government. His publications from that period include "Central Planning in Poland" and "The Structure of Economic Systems," both published by the Yale University Press.

Although his academic work was in the field of economics, Montias' passion was art, specifically 16th- and 17th-century Dutch painting. While on a fellowship at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Social Studies in 1978, he combined the two interests by writing a comparative study of Dutch art guilds during the 16th century, poring over 16th- and 17th-century archival records in the process of teaching himself gothic Dutch. The result was his 1982 book "Artists and Artisans in Delft, a Study of the 17th Century."

During the course of his research, Montias was surprised to learn that the scholarship on one of his favorite artists, Vermeer, was far from exhausted. He began a quest to uncover the life of the artist, considered one of the most enigmatic and mysterious. In 1989 he published the critically acclaimed "Vermeer and His Milieu: A Web of Social History." In this book, Montias traced the artist's life through notary records, discovering that Vermeer's grandfather was a convicted counterfeiter; that his grandmother ran illegal lotteries; and that the artist himself fathered 13 children and died at the age of 43, completely destitute. Today, it is estimated that there are only about 35 Vermeer paintings still in existence, and the most recent work sold at auction was purchased for $26 million in London last July.

Montias published three more books about the 17th-century Dutch art market: "Artists, Dealers and Consumers: The World of Social Art" (1994), "Public and Private Spaces: Works of Art in 17th-Century Dutch Houses" (2000) and "Art at Auction in 17th-Century Amsterdam" (2002).

Born Oct. 3, 1928 in Paris, France, Montias came to the United States when he was 12. At 16 he matriculated as an undergraduate at Columbia University. After serving in the Army during the Korean War, he returned to Columbia, earning both his M.A. and Ph.D. in economics. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1961.

Montias is survived by his wife, Marie, of New Haven; his mother, Giselle de la Maisoneuve, of Paris, France; and his son John-Luke, and his fiancé, Samantha, both of New York City.

The Yale economist was buried in Grove Street Cemetery.