In fact the last Vermeer to be publicly sold – in 2004 – went for $30 million, and it is nowhere near as good as Girl with a Pearl Earring. Now, of course, it is priceless the Mauritshuis would never sell it. On the collector’s death in 1902 it was donated to the Mauritshuis in The Hague, where it has hung ever since. We don’t know whom Vermeer first painted it for in 1665-66, but it ended up in his patron’s collection, was then sold on by his son-in-law, and was lost until it resurfaced 200 years later, when a collector bought it for 2 guilders (a little less than $1), and discovered it was a Vermeer once it had been cleaned. Banksy even turned her into graffiti on a Bristol wall, with a security alarm in place of her earring.
The internet is brimming with images of the girl, either just as she is, or altered for our times: taking a selfie, styled into a manga comic character, riding on the back of a motorcycle (with Van Gogh as the driver). It’s been used on the cover of many art books, and you can now own the painting on cushions, coasters, T-shirts, bags, socks, suitcases, and more.
Why is Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring such a popular painting? Nicknamed the “Mona Lisa of the North,” it’s beginning to rival Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa masterpiece in terms of exposure. Here the writer talks about why she’s been fascinated with Girl with a Pearl Earring since she was 19 and how that turned into inspiration for the book. Since being published, Chevalier’s novel has sold over five million copies worldwide, suggesting there’s a shared curiosity about this particular Vermeer work. Set in 17th century Delft, Holland, Chevalier presents a fictional account of Vermeer, the girl in the painting and the artwork itself. In 1999, American author Tracy Chevalier published Girl with a Pearl Earring, a novel directly inspired by one of Vermeer’s most famous works of the same name.
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