Where is girl with pearl earring

After the most recent restoration of the painting in , the subtle colour scheme and the intimacy of the girl's gaze toward the viewer have been greatly enhanced. During the restoration, it was discovered that the dark background, today somewhat mottled, was initially intended by the painter to be a deep enamel-like green.

This effect was produced by applying a thin transparent layer of paint, called a glaze, over the present-day black background. However, the two organic pigments of the green glaze, indigo and weld, have faded. At the time, it was in poor condition. Des Tombe had no heirs and donated this and other paintings to the Mauritshuis in Later in it was exhibited in Bologna, Italy. In June , it returned to the Mauritshuis museum which stated that the painting will not leave the museum in the future.

The ground is dense and yellowish in color and is composed of chalk, lead white, ochre and very little black. The dark background of the painting contains bone black, weld luteolin, reseda luteola , chalk, small amounts of red ochre, and indigo. The face and draperies were painted mainly using ochres, natural ultramarine, bone black, charcoal black and lead white.

No one really knows for sure …. The highlights on her lips, the gleaming pearl that consists of just two brushstrokes: Vermeer was a magician with light in his paintings. He let the light fall from different angles and was able, better than any other artist, to bring his works to life. Her look is universal rather than specific. This leads to the third and most powerful quality of the painting: its mystery. Indeed, we know very little about Vermeer.

He lived his whole life in the Dutch town of Delft. He was in debt several times. We have no idea who these women are, though they are likely to be members of the family household. Is she happy or sad? Is she pushing us away or yearning to look at us? The high-quality ultramarine used in the headscarf and the jacket was made from the semi-precious stone lapis lazuli that came from what is now Afghanistan during a time-consuming and laborious process.

Due to these findings, the artist's liberal use of the color is striking. Although the research didn't find out the identity of the young lady and if she ever really existed, the researches did manage to get a little closer to her, making her more personal. To the naked eye, the Girl has always appeared to have had no eyelashes. However, macro-X-ray fluorescence scanning and microscopic examination did reveal that Vermeer painted tiny hairs around both eyes.

All these findings are extremely valuable, but as Martine Gosselink , director of the Mauritshuis, explains, this is not "the end point of our research.

We want to go even further with the research. The technical possibilities continue to develop. The collaborations are growing, and so is the desire to find out more. Of course, we will keep you informed!