Napkin ~Girl w Pearl Earring ~ Vermeer

Girl With A Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer, c. 1665. Dutch masterpiece also referred to as the Mona Lisa of the North or the Dutch Mona Lisa. Housed at The Hague, Netherlands. Mystery surrounds the origin of this painting ~ as it does much of the life of its painter. It is speculated that the subject was a maid who lived in the house of the painter along with his family and other servants, though there is no historical evidence . Another suggestion is that the subject is Vermeer’s eldest daughter María. Recent Vermeer literature points to the image being a tronie: the Dutch term for a genre of 17th-century ’head’ paintings that were intended to depict certain, (often exaggerated) facial expressions or stock characters in historical costume. In this portrait, the young girl is wearing a cornflower - blue turban and gold silk scarf. Adding to the mystery is the fact that historians note that this rather commonplace turban was rarely seen in Netherlands of Vermeer’s day. A stylish 2003 film starring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth paints a fictionalized version of the genesis of the painting. Much of Vermeer features a pearl motif. In fact, eleven of his known works include pearls. As is often the case with Vermeer, the great strength of the painting is the painter’s use of light. The plain dark background, rare in Vermeer’s oeuvre, is designed to highlight the pearl earring of the title. This particular earring was a rare specimen for the time and it has been suggested that Vermeer painted the earring purely from his imagination: a testament to his true painterly genius.