The painting Girl with a Pearl Earring is one of Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer's masterworks
and, as the name implies, uses a pearl earring for a focal point. It has been in the collection
of the Mauritshuis gallery in The Hague since 1902.
Background The painting is signed "IVMeer" but not dated.
It is unclear whether this work was commissioned, and, if so, by whom. In any case, it is probably
not meant as a conventional portrait. The image is a tronie, the Dutch 17th-century
description of a ‘head’ that was not meant to be a portrait. After the most recent restoration
of the painting in 1994, the subtle color scheme and the intimacy of the girl’s gaze
toward the viewer have been greatly enhanced. During the restoration, it was discovered
that the dark background, today somewhat mottled, was initially intended by the painter to be
a deep enamel-like green. This effect was produced by applying a thin transparent layer
of paint, called a glaze, over the present-day black background. However, the two organic
pigments of the green glaze, indigo and weld, have faded.
On the advice of Victor de Stuers, who for years tried to prevent Vermeer's rare works
from being sold to parties abroad, Arnoldus Andries des Tombe purchased the work at an
auction in The Hague in 1881, for only two guilders and thirty cents. At the time, it
was in poor condition. Des Tombe had no heirs and donated this and other paintings to the
Mauritshuis in 1902. In 1937, a very similar painting, Smiling
Girl, at the time also thought to be by Vermeer, was donated by collector Andrew W. Mellon
to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Now widely considered to be a fake, the
painting was claimed by Vermeer expert Arthur Wheelock in a 1995 study to be by 20th-century
artist and forger Theo van Wijngaarden, a friend of Han van Meegeren.
In 2012, as part of a traveling exhibition while the Mauritshuis was being renovated
and expanded, the painting was exhibited in Japan at the National Museum of Western Art,
Tokyo, and in 2013-2014 the United States, where it was shown at the High Museum in Atlanta,
the de Young Museum in San Francisco and in New York City at the Frick Collection. Later
in 2014 it was exhibited in Bologna, Italy. In June 2014, it was returned to the Mauritshuis
museum, where it was given a more prominent place than before.
References in fiction Tracy Chevalier wrote a historical novel,
also entitled Girl with a Pearl Earring, fictionalizing the circumstances of the painting's creation.
In the novel, Johannes Vermeer becomes close with a fictional servant named Griet, whom
he hires as an assistant and has sit for him as a painting model while wearing his wife's
pearl earrings. The novel inspired a 2003 film and 2008 play of the same name. The 2003
film stars Scarlett Johansson as the girl with the pearl earring, Griet. Johansson was
nominated for various awards including a Golden Globe Award and a BAFTA Award for Best Actress
in a Leading Role. The painting also appears in the 2007 film
St Trinian's, when the girls devise to - and successfully do - steal and fence the painting,
to raise funds to save the school. See also
Dutch Golden Age painting List of paintings by Johannes Vermeer
References
Further reading Liedtke, Walter A.. Vermeer and the Delft
School. Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 9780870999734. External links
In-depth view of the Girl with a Pearl Earring An investigation into the illumination of
Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring