Een meisje met een parel oorbel en een tulband keert zich naar de kijker

The most famous girl in the world

People travel to The Hague from all over the world to see Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring in the flesh. But what makes her so special?

Told by

Abbie Vandivere (1)

Abbie Vandivere

Conservator

Janice Deul (1)

Janice Deul

Fashion activist

Portret van auteur Tracy Chevalier, schrijver van 'Girl with a pearl earring'

Tracy Chevalier

Writer

People travel to The Hague from all over the world to see Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring in the flesh. Or dream of coming here. They buy posters, fridge magnets and socks bearing her image. They set her as the desktop image on their computer, watch the film with Scarlett Johansson and read Tracy Chevalier’s novel. Or they dress up as the Girl.

But why is she so famous? We don’t know why exactly. We do have some theories, but we can’t explain it entirely. And maybe we don’t really want to – a little mystery suits the Girl.

Bezoekers van het Mauritshuis staan stil voor 'Meisje met de parel' van Johannes Vermeer

Everyone their own Girl

Every world-famous artwork has one thing in common: it is extremely well made. This is true of the Girl too. Just look at the light that Vermeer painted. It falls softly on the girl’s face, making her eyes sparkle and the pearl earring gleam. Or at the vivid colours in front of the dark background: the fresh blue of her headdress, the greeny-yellow of her jacket and the red of her lips.

Vermeer painted the girl without any hard lines. We call this technique sfumato, the Italian word for smoky or blurred. This means that all kinds of details are missing, such as the hook for the earring – Vermeer did not paint that at all. And where does her nose turn into her cheek? So you can see more than Vermeer actually painted: your brain fills in the details so subtly that you don’t even notice it happening. But this also means that everyone sees something different and that we each have our own Girl.

Een meisje met een parel oorbel en een tulband keert zich naar de kijker

All audio clips

  • Madeleine Maatstap

    Museum educator

    Madeleine
  • Herman Mastwijk

    Security guard Mauritshuis

    Herman

Our conservator on the Girl

We don’t know who posed for Girl with a Pearl Earring. But we do know quite a lot about the painting itself. This is because we have conducted extensive research into the painting in recent years, using the very latest techniques to do so. We found answers to questions about how Vermeer painted the Girl.Which pigments did he use and where did they come from? Did Vermeer make a sketch before he started painting? And is there anything to say about that dark background?

The research was conducted by a team of internal and external experts, and was led by one of the Mauritshuis conservators: Abbie Vandivere. Let her tell you all about the research into the Girl.

All audio clips

  • Abbie Vandivere

    Conservator

    Abbie Vandivere (1)
Het Meisje met de parel zoals ze er nu uit ziet
Een reconstructie van het Meisje met de parel hoe ze eruit zag toen ze net geschilderd was

The biggest 3D-print of the Girl

The largest ever 3D print of a painting is currently on view at the Mauritshuis. It’s 4 meters tall: the real painting of the Girl with a Pearl Earring could fit inside 100 times. In this video, you can watch the Girl’s eye being printed in layers, each half the thickness of a human hair.

The biggest 3D-print of the Girl

Abbie visits Clemens at Canon Production Printing to admire the first print of the Girl.

Vlog-series about researching the Girl

Two years of research was conducted by a team of internal and external experts, and was led by one of the Mauritshuis conservators: Abbie Vandivere. Let her tell you all about the research into the Girl.

Visual Effects

1.47 min

Steps of Vermeer

The painter worked systematically from the background to the foreground: after painting the greenish background and the skin of the Girl’s face, he then successively applied her yellow jacket, white collar, headscarf and ‘pearl’.

1.16 min

Pigments

The research identified and accurately mapped Vermeer’s colour palette in this painting for the first time. The raw materials for the colours came from all over the world.

3.19 min

Changes

The new research revealed that Vermeer made changes to the composition during the painting process: the position of the ear, the top of the headscarf and the back of the neck were shifted.

2.28 min

What dit she look like?

What might the Girl have looked like when the painting was on Vermeer’s easel in 1655? Use the slider on the digital visualisation to compare “then and now”. The video shows us the steps that Vermeer took to paint the Girl and how she has changed over time.

Timelapse

In this timelapse you can discover how the painting was created and changed over time.

Get to know the Girl better

Feeling inspired to get to know the painting better and zoom in on all kinds of details? See and read more about the Girl here.

Een close-up van 'Meisje met de parel' ter hoogte van haar oog, de barsten in de verf zijn goed zichtbaar

Who’s that girl?

Rather than a portrait, Vermeer painted an idealised girl’s face. A girl from Delft probably posed as the model, but Vermeer painted her wearing a headdress that wouldn’t have been worn by Dutch women at that time. This made the painting even more fascinating to look at. Vermeer turned his model into a kind of supermodel.

Paintings like this were called ‘tronies’ in the 17th century. This work was then described a ‘tronie painted in the Turkish style’ or a ‘tronie in the antique style’.

The fun of an anonymous girl like this is that you, the viewer, can decide who she is. What’s her background? What does she do? What does she worry about? What are her dreams? You can fill it all in for yourself. The best-known story about this girl is by Tracy Chevalier. She wrote Girl with a Pearl Earring and named the girl Griet. The book was turned into a film starring Scarlett Johansson.

Een filmstill uit de film 'Girl with a pearl earring' met Scarlett Johansson en Colin Firth

All audio clips

  • Tracy Chevalier

    Writer

    Portret van auteur Tracy Chevalier, schrijver van 'Girl with a pearl earring'
  • Janice Deul

    Fashion activist

    Janice Deul (1)

Spinvis - Parel

Musician Spinvis was inspired by the Girl and wrote a special song. It was also kind of exciting as he said: "It may seem a very obvious choice to write a song about. But I felt a bit hesitant about it too, since it is such a classic, world-famous work"

The Girl as a role model

Vermeer’s Girl appeals to many people. She inspires them to look, and look again. To read, invent and daydream. And to make: the Girl sparks creativity in lots of people. She inspires them to paint, graffiti, write love songs and make portraits, embroideries and cupcakes. If the Girl were a girl of flesh and blood, you would be forgiven for thinking that everyone was in love with her. Discover why fashion activist Janice Deul is so attracted to the Girl

My Girl with a Pearl

February 6 - June 4, 2023

In February 2023, our world-famous and most beloved masterpiece, Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring, will be on loan to the Rijksmuseum for eight weeks for the Johannes Vermeer exhibition. Yet the spirit of the Girl will not leave the Vermeer room....

From February to June 2023 every creative person has a chance to be displayed in a digital frame in the Girl’s original spot in the Vermeer room. A very desirable spot where hundreds of people a day will be able to admire your Girl.

The presentation My Girl with a Pearl shows that the Girl is recognizable in everything and everyone. In a son or daughter, in buttons, an iron or just a few swipes of a brush.

April 1, 2023 marks the festive and grand return of the Girl with a Pearl Earring to The Hague. From then on, everyone will be able to visit her again in the Mauritshuis.

@tobeamuse (1)

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