Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring: history and mysteries
When Johannes Vermeer completed his painting in 1665, he probably didn't realize he had just created one of the most enigmatic images in art history
By Artedusa
••5 min read
Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring: history and mysteries
When Johannes Vermeer completed his painting in 1665, he probably didn't realize he had just created one of the most enigmatic images in art history. Girl with a Pearl Earring, this portrait that follows you with its gaze no matter where you stand in the room, continues to fascinate the world more than three centuries after its creation.
Who was Johannes Vermeer?
In 17th-century Delft, a painter worked slowly, meticulously, producing barely two or three paintings a year. Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) painted only 34 works in his entire life. Each one is a miracle of light, color, and silence.
Vermeer belonged to the Dutch Golden Age, that extraordinary period when artists like Rembrandt and Frans Hals were redefining painting. But unlike his contemporaries who mass-produced, Vermeer chose perfection over quantity. He died riddled with debt, forgotten, his canvases scattered. It would take until the 19th century for his genius to be rediscovered.
The painting's history, from oblivion to glory
Girl with a Pearl Earring had a tumultuous fate. After Vermeer's death, the painting disappeared into obscurity for nearly two centuries. In 1881, a collector bought it for a pittance at an auction in The Hague. Two florins. The price of a meal.
The painting was in terrible condition, blackened by varnish, unrecognizable. But the person who acquired it saw something. This girl turning around, this pearl catching the light, this deep blue turban. In 1902, the Mauritshuis in The Hague purchased it, and the painting finally found its permanent home.
Today, Girl with a Pearl Earring attracts over 400,000 visitors a year. It's nicknamed "the Mona Lisa of the North," and not without reason.
Vermeer's technique, a master of light
Look carefully at the girl's lips. Vermeer didn't draw their outline. He simply laid down touches of pink and white, creating a perfect illusion of volume and softness. This technique, close to impressionism before its time, is Vermeer's signature.
The painter probably used a camera obscura, the ancestor of the camera, to study light effects. This explains that photographic quality, the way light seems to vibrate on the girl's face.
The turban's blue is an ultramarine made from crushed lapis lazuli, a stone more precious than gold at the time. Vermeer doesn't skimp. He layers it, creating that depth, that richness that makes the blue seem almost luminous.
And that pearl. It consists of only two brushstrokes: one white, one translucent. Yet it shines, it weighs, it exists. It's pure genius.
Who is this mysterious girl?
That's the question that has haunted art historians for over a century. Who is she?
Tracy Chevalier, in her novel "Girl with a Pearl Earring" (1999), imagines she's called Griet, a servant in the Vermeer household. The film that followed, with Scarlett Johansson, anchored this story in our collective imagination. But it's fiction.
The truth? We don't know it. Several theories compete. Maybe Vermeer's daughter, the artist had 15 children after all. One of them could have posed. Maria, his eldest daughter, was about 13 in 1665. Or perhaps just a tronie, those facial studies typical of 17th-century Dutch art, often idealized, without a specific model. Perhaps also a commission from a wealthy merchant for his daughter or wife.
What's certain is that it's not a formal portrait. The background is black, abstract. The girl wears exotic costume that doesn't correspond to any Dutch fashion. This turban, these clothes, this pearl: everything is theatrical, timeless.
Why does this painting fascinate so much?
There's something elusive in that gaze. The girl turns toward us, lips parted as if about to speak. But she says nothing. She stares at us, at once innocent and aware, shy and bold.
It's this ambiguity that captivates us. Unlike the Mona Lisa whose smile is enigmatic, here it's the instant that's suspended. You get the impression of having interrupted someone, of having called their name, and that they're turning toward you. But what will she say? What is she thinking?
Dutch psychologist Dolf Verroen analyzed the painting's facial expressions and concluded that the girl expresses 12 different emotions depending on angle and lighting. Surprise, serenity, melancholy, expectation... The face changes, lives, breathes.
The pearl, symbol and meaning
In 17th-century Dutch painting, pearls hold particular significance. They represent purity, virginity, but also vanity and the ephemeral. In Dutch emblematic tradition, a pearl can symbolize the human soul.
This specific pearl is almost too large to be real. It hangs from the girl's ear like a tear of light. Some historians think it's a baroque pearl, misshapen, which was highly prized at the time. Others suggest it's glass, which was common for theatrical jewelry.
But Vermeer gives us no clue. The pearl shines, period. It draws our eye, creates a focal point, balances the composition. It's a detail that transforms an ordinary tronie into an absolute masterpiece.
Restorations and controversies
In 1994, the Mauritshuis undertook a major restoration of the painting. Restorers worked for six months under the eyes of thousands of visitors, in a specially designed glass room.
They discovered that the black background wasn't original. Vermeer had painted a dark green background that had blackened over time and previous restorations. Under the varnish layers, they found brighter, more luminous colors.
In 2018, a new scientific analysis campaign, called "Girl in the Spotlight," revealed fascinating details. Advanced imaging techniques showed that Vermeer modified the pearl's position, that he rethought the turban, that he constantly sought perfection.
They also discovered that the girl's eyelashes have almost entirely disappeared due to overly aggressive 19th-century restorations. A tragedy for purists, but one that takes nothing away from the painting's magic.
Cultural impact, from artwork to global icon
Girl with a Pearl Earring has become much more than a painting. It's a pop culture icon.
Tracy Chevalier's novel sold millions of copies worldwide. The 2003 film with Scarlett Johansson was nominated for Oscars. Contemporary artists reinterpret the image in graffiti, pop art, photography.
In 2014, street artist Banksy created a version where the girl wears a security alarm in her ear instead of the pearl. A biting critique of the art market and museum over-securitization.
On Instagram, the hashtag #GirlWithAPearlEarring has hundreds of thousands of posts. Mauritshuis visitors recreate the pose, with their own "pearl." The painting has become a meme, a Snapchat filter, a Halloween costume.
This modern popularity testifies to a truth: Vermeer's art transcends eras. What touched 17th-century Dutch people still touches us today.
Visiting Girl with a Pearl Earring at the Mauritshuis
If you travel to the Netherlands, the Mauritshuis in The Hague is a must-see. The museum itself is a gem: a 17th-century palace, intimate and elegant, the opposite of intimidating grand museums.
Girl with a Pearl Earring has its own room. You can stand a few meters from it, observe every brushstroke, see how light plays on the pearl. It's an experience that reproductions, however good, cannot equal.
The museum regularly organizes temporary exhibitions around Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. After contemplating the girl, you can discover other treasures: Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Jan Steen.
To visit, the address is Plein 29, 2511 CS The Hague. Online booking is recommended, admission runs around 16 euros (free for under 18s). The museum is less crowded on weekdays, early in the morning.
Vermeer's other masterpieces
If Girl with a Pearl Earring moved you, you must discover other Vermeers. Unfortunately, they're scattered worldwide.
The Milkmaid at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam shows a servant pouring milk in an almost religious silence. The light on the bread, on the wall, is breathtakingly beautiful. View of Delft, also at the Mauritshuis, is Vermeer's only cityscape. Marcel Proust said it was "the most beautiful painting in the world."
There's also Woman with a Pearl Necklace, yes, there's another painting with a pearl at the Mauritshuis. This one shows a woman in profile, in a typical Vermeer bourgeois interior. And then The Art of Painting at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, where Vermeer perhaps represents himself painting. A manifesto on art and creation.
Visiting these paintings is an artistic pilgrimage. Each one is a world unto itself.
The eternal youth of a masterpiece
More than 350 years after its creation, Girl with a Pearl Earring continues to question us, move us, fascinate us. It embodies art's paradox: being both frozen in time and eternally alive.
Vermeer captured an instant, a gaze, a light. But what he really painted is the mystery of humanity itself. This girl, we'll never know who she was. And it's precisely because we don't know that she can be anyone. She can be us.
Each generation rediscovers this painting and projects onto it its own questions, its own dreams. That's the mark of a true masterpiece: not to provide answers, but to continue asking questions.
So the next time you see this image, on a poster, a book cover, or in a museum, take a moment. Really look at it. Let yourself be captured by that gaze. And ask yourself: what is she trying to tell me?
Perhaps in his dusty Delft studio, Vermeer painted something far greater than a simple portrait. He painted a bridge between centuries, a silent dialogue that will never end.
Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring: history and mysteries | Art History | Artedusa
