Girl with a Pearl Earring (c. 1665)

How to look at it

Start at the pearl, then look closer: it is only two touches of paint, a bright highlight at the top and a soft reflection of her white collar below. There is no hook holding it. Then move to her eyes and the small white points of light in them, and to the wet shine on her lower lip. Against the now-dark background, which was once a green curtain, her face, the blue cloth and the pearl stand out.

Why this one

A study, not a known portrait. It is a tronie, a Dutch study of a face, an expression or a costume. No one knows who sat for it.

A pearl made of light. Seen up close, the pearl is almost nothing: two strokes of paint and no outline. Your eye builds the rest.

The most precious blue. The blue of her turban is natural ultramarine, ground from lapis lazuli, which the Mauritshuis says was more precious than gold in the 17th century.

Bought for almost nothing. In 1881 a collector bought it at auction in The Hague for two guilders plus thirty cents, then left it to the Mauritshuis, where it is on view today.

This canvas

Oil on canvas, 44.5 × 39 cm (17½ × 15⅜ in), Delft, about 1665. The canvas hangs in The Hague.

Fact gap. She is a study, not a known portrait, the black background was once a green curtain, and the pearl is two strokes of paint with no hook. See what the record says.

Sizes vs the original

• 10×12 a desk or shelf piece, about two thirds of her true size
• 15×18 almost exactly the real canvas (15⅜×17½), as she looks in the museum
• 20×24 a little larger than life, her gaze meets you across a room

Paper & ship

Archival matte fine art paper, no bleed, 5:6 portrait proportion, a whisker trimmed from each side of the photograph so her face and the pearl stay whole. Printed from the public domain photograph of the painting without remastering the color. Made to order, rolled in a tube. A black or dark walnut frame both suit it.

Quick answers

Who is the girl? No one knows. It is a tronie, a study of a face, not a commissioned portrait.

Is the pearl real? Probably not a real pearl. The museum says it is too large to be real; it may be varnished glass, or Vermeer's invention.

Is this an original painting? No. It is an archival reproduction of the canvas from about 1665.

Is the image public domain? Yes. Vermeer died in 1675, and the photograph we print from is a faithful public domain reproduction. No museum endorses this shop.