Is the Girl with Pearl Earring valuable? We’ll find out in this post! Is the Girl with Pearl Earring valuable painting masterpiece?
This painting, known as the Mona Lisa of the North, was completed by the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer in 1665.
Originally titled “The Girl with a Turban”, the work became known as “The Girl with a Pearl Earring” after the second half of the 20th century.
The painting was completed in the 17th century and became famous in the 20th century. So why has it come this far without being famous for so long?
Girl with a Pearl Earring, a novel of the same name by Tracy Chevalier in 1999, inspired by this painting, presents a fictionalised account of Vermeer, the model and the painting.
Tracy Chevalier’s inspiration for the novel was a poster of this work. She had bought the poster as a nineteen-year-old child and hung it where she lived for sixteen years. Chevalier states that the “uncertain look” on the woman’s face left a lasting impression on him. He describes her expression as “a mass of contradictions: innocent yet experienced, joyful yet tearful, full of longing yet full of loss.” Feeling guided by the painter, he begins to think about “the story behind that appearance”.
Chevalier’s research was completed by reading the history of the period, studying the paintings of Vermeer and his peers, and spending a few days in Delft, and the book was published in 1999.
I will not go into the subject of the book, but as a result of a fictionally successful book, the lack of information about Vermeer and his works made the fiction seem more realistic. And the exhibition “Vermeer and the Delft School”, which was organised in New York in 2001 after the publication of the book, attracted twice as many visitors as the Vermeer exhibition in previous years. The success of the exhibition was partly due to this book.
The novel was subsequently adapted for the cinema in 2003 and 2008. Link here
Let’s come to what is known about the masterpiece
Continue finding and answer to our primary question “Is Girl with a Pearl Earring Valuable or Special?”
The most important element of the painting is that the identity of the woman depicted is unknown. There is no information about the woman, or those periods were not researched because she did not gain fame. However, there are various theories about who this woman is. There are claims that she was Vermeer’s mistress or that she served as his assistant. However, the strong opinion is that this woman did not represent an aristocrat/wife or a nun, but an ordinary person, showing that he cared about women’s place in the social order and their social rights.
In this work, Vermeer used the Sfumato technique used by Leonarda Da Vinci in his Mona Lisa. Sfumato derives from the word “fuma” (smoke) and is a technique of processing almost imperceptible colour transitions. In other words, it uses step-by-step tones.
Another reason why the painting is known as the Mona Lisa of the North is that, just as the smile of the real Mona Lisa is mysterious, the woman here draws attention with her parted lips and the earring in her ear. The pearl earring forms the escape point, the centre of the painting. When looking carefully at the earring, which is considered to be perfectly painted, it is realised that it is made in the form of tears and the reflection of light is successfully given.
Vermeer is known as a painter who usually gives 2-3 works a year, emphasising the details. We can say that details are also at the forefront in this work.
As a result, we can attribute the fact that the work is so famous to the fictional content. An impressive fiction about this work, about which we have very little information and whose story we do not know exactly, was processed and became famous. Of course, the story continued to be impressive on the silver screen.
“Girl With a Pearl Earring” is now in the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague, Netherlands.
You can visit this museum virtually. Girl with a Pearl Earring is also located in Room 15. Click for virtual tour