Facts about Girl with a Pearl Earring
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Vermeer's subject wears an exotic turban-like headdress made from costly materials, suggesting she may represent an imagined figure rather than an identifiable person from his time.
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Vermeer painted Girl with a Pearl Earring during the 1660s, a period when he produced only 34 known works over his entire lifetime.
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Vermeer likely used a camera obscura optical device to achieve the photorealistic detail and precise light effects visible in Girl with a Pearl Earring.
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Prussian blue, a synthetic pigment first synthesized in 1704, appears prominently in the background of Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring.
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In 2018, conservation work revealed that Vermeer used a single large pearl earring as his model, not multiple pieces, when painting this iconic work.
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The painting's identity remained unknown for centuries until art historian Abraham Bredius attributed it to Vermeer in 1881.
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Vermeer's masterpiece measures 44.5 by 39 centimeters and hangs in the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, Netherlands.