Closer to Vermeer and the Girl

Girl with a Blog

Hi, I’m Abbie Vandivere, a paintings conservator at the Mauritshuis, and the head researcher of the Girl in the Spotlight project. On this page I have been blogging and posting photos daily to update you on the technical examination of the Girl with a Pearl Earring.

Between 26 February and 12 March 2018, an international team of scientists, conservators and researchers have undertaken a technical examination of our most beloved painting. In 2020 the research team unveiled their new discoveries.

More about the results

1. Who's that Girl?

You may know her as the Girl with a Pearl Earring, and she’s my downstairs neighbour. As a paintings conservator at the Mauritshuis, I refer to her as Het meisje (the Girl), and sometimes my colleagues...

2. Preparing for the exam

Yesterday you met the Girl with of a Pearl Earring, who is the subject of this technical examination project. Today you’ll meet our team.

3. Beauty is more than skin deep

We’re used to seeing images of the Girl with a Pearl Earring in books, posters, online – and recently, on the packaging for ice cream bars.

4. How much is The Girl worth?

How much did the Mauritshuis pay for the Girl with a Pearl Earring when she entered the collection? Nothing. How much is she worth now? She’s priceless.

5. Vermeer illuminated

The Girl with a Pearl Earring has been treated several times since she entered the Mauritshuis collection. Yesterday you read about the painting’s conservation history until the 1960s, and today I’ll talk...

6. Say cheese

If you look up #mygirlwiththepearl on Instagram, you’ll see hundreds of creative photos inspired by the Girl with a Pearl Earring.

7. A blank canvas

Imagine a miraculous plant, which produces two important materials that are found in the Girl with a Pearl Earring. The fibres that made the canvas and the oil that binds the paint both came from the same...

8. From the ground up

We’ve all been faced with a blank page or a blank computer screen, and the daunting task of turning it into a work of art…or a blog entry. Imagine Vermeer in front of the canvas that would eventually become...

9. Watching paint dry

How did Vermeer make the paint that was used in the Girl with a Pearl Earring?

10. Art supply and demand

Where do you go to buy art supplies? Nowadays you can buy pre-primed canvas, tubes of paint and brushes online or from your local store. Where did Vermeer’s art supplies come from?

11. Seeing red

How did squished bugs end up on the lips of the Girl with a Pearl Earring? How is it that deadly mercury was identified in her skin? The answers will bring us closer to finding out about the geographic...

12. It's all there in black and white

How many different materials can you burn to make black pigments? What does the most important white pigment in Western art have to do with horse poop? It’s all there in black and white.

13. Background check

When you stand in front of the Girl with a Pearl Earring, the dark background appears to recede, and the Girl herself is – visually and emotionally – closer to you.

14. Up close and personal

So far, we’ve looked closely at the Girl with a Pearl Earring, and the materials that went into painting her. Now we’ll look even closer, by zooming into the surface and magnifying it up to 700 times....

15. Contouring highlighting and blending

The Girl’s skin looks flawless, with an impeccable transition from light to shadow. Her face is so smooth and well-contoured that it has inspired online makeup tutorial videos.

16. Dressed to impress

If the Girl stepped onto a red carpet, reporters might ask ‘who are you wearing?’

17. Out of the blue

Ultramarine, the brilliant blue pigment that he used to paint the headscarf, also has an exotic back story.

18. Glazed over

The Girl’s pearl earring isn’t the only part of the painting that looks like it is semi- translucent, as if you can almost see right through it.

19. You're cracking me up

The Girl must have been young when Vermeer painted her, but just as people develop wrinkles as they get older, paintings start to show their age in the form of cracks.

20. Wrap-up

Two weeks of round-the-clock scientific examination has made the Girl with the Pearl Earring one of the most thoroughly researched paintings in the world.

Colophon

The Girl in the Spotlight is a Mauritshuis initiative, and is being conducted as a collaborative project within the framework of the Netherlands Institute for Conservation, Art and Science (NICAS).

Examination Methods

Several examination methods were used to research the Girl with the Pearl Earring. From technical photography to MA-XRPD. On this page, we explain how the methods work and how they were applied to the...

Glossary Girl in the Spotlight

On this page we explain the difficult words used in the blogs about the Girl.

The research project is a Mauritshuis initiative, with a team of internationally recognised specialists working within the collaborative framework of the Netherlands Institute for Conservation, Art and Science (NICAS), including Rijksmuseum, Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), University of Amsterdam (UvA) and the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE).