# Girl with a Pearl Earring > Johannes Vermeer - c. 1665 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/johannes-vermeer/girl-with-a-pearl-earring/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-11 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Johannes Vermeer - **Date:** c. 1665 - **Medium:** Oil on canvas - **Dimensions:** 44.5 x 39 cm - **Object type:** Painting - **Period:** Dutch Golden Age, 1600-1700 - **Current location:** Mauritshuis, The Hague - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary The best-known head in European painting, and one of the shortest documented ownership histories attached to a famous picture. The Mauritshuis prints a chain reaching back to Vermeer's lifetime in which every link before 1881 carries a question mark, and this record keeps those question marks rather than smoothing them out. The painting enters the documentary record in 1881, at the Braams sale in The Hague, where it was bought for two guilders with a thirty cent mark-up by Arnoldus Andries des Tombe, after the cultural official Victor de Stuers agreed not to bid against him. Des Tombe left it to the Mauritshuis in a secret will; it entered the collection in 1903 as inv. 670.It is a tronie, not a portrait: a study of a head in exotic costume, made for the open market rather than for a sitter. No identification of the girl has ever been established and the category means there may never have been one to establish. The long-standing association with a tronie in the Dissius sale of 16 May 1696 remains an argument, not a fact, and cannot be narrowed even to which of the three candidate lots is meant; the Metropolitan Museum's Study of a Young Woman is a competing claimant for the same entries.What is known in detail is the paint. The 2018 project The Girl in the Spotlight examined the picture non-invasively for two weeks in front of the museum public and published its findings across nine open-access papers. The background is a faded green glaze of indigo and weld over charcoal black, and the imaging found diagonal modelling in it that the researchers read as folded fabric, very probably a curtain. The eyelashes everyone believed absent are there. The ultramarine came from lapis that had been heated before grinding; the lead white came from Derbyshire. The pearl is two strokes of paint over a finished neck, with no contour and no hook, and it is too large to have been a real one. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **c. 1665-1674** (?) Pieter Claesz van Ruijven, Delft `[disputed]` (possible first owner) The Mauritshuis records this link with a question mark. Van Ruijven and his wife owned about twenty-one Vermeers, more than half the surviving output, and Vermeer worked almost exclusively for them and their circle for roughly thirteen years from 1657. No document ties this particular canvas to him. - **1674-1681** (?) Maria de Knuijt, widow of van Ruijven, Delft `[disputed]` (possible inheritance) Recorded by the Mauritshuis with a question mark. De Knuijt's 1665 will left Vermeer five hundred guilders should she predecease him, which establishes the relationship but not the ownership of this picture. - **1681-1682** (?) Magdalena van Ruijven and Jacob Dissius, Delft `[disputed]` (possible inheritance) Recorded by the Mauritshuis with a question mark. - **1682-1695** (?) Jacob Dissius, Delft, with his father Abraham Dissius 1685-1694 `[disputed]` (possible inheritance) Recorded by the Mauritshuis with a question mark. Dissius died in 1695 and the collection was sold the following year. - **1696** Unidentified buyer at the Dissius sale, Amsterdam `[disputed]` (sale) Dissius sale, Oude Heeren Logement, Amsterdam, 16 May 1696, lot 38 (36 guilders), 39 (17 guilders) or 40 (17 guilders), all described only as tronies. Twenty-one Vermeers were sold that day for 1,503 guilders and 10 stuivers. The identification of this painting with one of these three lots is long-standing and unresolved; the Metropolitan Museum's Study of a Young Woman is a competing candidate for the same entries. No buyer is recorded against any of the three in the sources consulted. - **-1881** Unknown `[unknown]` (gap) No owner is documented between the 1660s and 1881, and if the Dissius identification is rejected the gap runs the full two centuries. The painting was unknown to the public until 1881 and its authorship had been forgotten. - **1881-1902** Arnoldus Andries des Tombe, The Hague `[documented]` (purchase) Bought at the Braams sale, Venduhuis der Notarissen, Nobelstraat, The Hague, 1881 (day and month not recorded) for two guilders plus a thirty-cent mark-up, after Victor de Stuers and Des Tombe agreed not to bid against each other. The painting was in a sorry state of neglect. It was lent to the Mauritshuis in the year of purchase and hung in Des Tombe's house at Parkstraat 26, where Abraham Bredius saw it in 1885. Sent to Antwerp in 1881 for lining by a restorer named Van de Haeghen. - **1903-present** Mauritshuis, The Hague `[documented]` (bequest) Des Tombe died on 16 December 1902 without heirs, having made a secret will leaving twelve paintings to the Mauritshuis. This was one of them. It entered the collection in 1903 as inv. 670 and is on view in Room 15. On temporary loan to the Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka, while the Mauritshuis is closed from 24 August to 20 September 2026. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **1696-05-16** Dissius sale, Oude Heeren Logement, Amsterdam, - Hammer: 36 guilders (lot 38); 17 guilders (lot 39); 17 guilders (lot 40) - With premium: Not recorded - DISPUTED IDENTIFICATION. This painting has long been associated with one of these three lots and cannot be assigned to any of them. Lot 38 was described as a tronie in antique dress, uncommonly artful; lots 39 and 40 as further works by the same hand. Twenty-one Vermeers were sold that day for a total of 1,503 guilders and 10 stuivers. No premium arrangement is recorded for this sale in the sources consulted, so no hammer-to-premium split can be made. The Essential Vermeer catalogue entry gives 46 guilders for lot 38; the Mauritshuis provenance and the same site's account of the auction both give 36, which is the figure recorded here. - **1881** Braams sale, Venduhuis der Notarissen, Nobelstraat, The Hague, - Hammer: 2 guilders - With premium: 0.30 guilders - Day and month not recorded. Total paid 2.30 guilders, printed by the Mauritshuis as f2,30 and by the head researcher of the 2018 technical project as two guilders plus a thirty cent commission. Bought by Arnoldus Andries des Tombe after Victor de Stuers agreed not to bid against him. Accounts that quote a single figure for this sale are conflating the hammer and the mark-up; both components are documented. No conversion to a modern figure is offered here: the guilder amount is the fact, any equivalent is a derived and date-dependent estimate. ## Open questions - Where was the painting between the 1660s and 1881? No owner is documented for roughly two centuries. - Is it one of the tronies in the Dissius sale of 16 May 1696, and if so, is it lot 38, 39 or 40? The Mauritshuis records all three without choosing, and the catalogue descriptions carry no dimensions, sitter or distinguishing detail. - Was it ever owned by Pieter van Ruijven? Every link in the museum's own pre-1696 chain carries a question mark, and the reconstruction rests on a probability about Vermeer's output rather than a document about this canvas. - On what day and month in 1881 did the Braams sale take place, and who consigned the painting to it? Neither is recorded. - Is the background a curtain? The published conclusion is folded fabric, possibly a curtain; the popular account states a green curtain as established fact. The distinction has never been closed. - Was the chalk in the shadow of the blue headscarf added deliberately to adjust the paint's handling, or is it the substrate of a yellow lake that has since faded? The ultramarine paper poses this and leaves it open. - Was there a specific sitter, and can she be named? Andrew Graham-Dixon proposed Magdalena van Ruijven in a book published in 2025, on interpretative rather than documentary grounds. No identification has ever been established, and the tronie category means one may never have existed. - Is the date c. 1665 correct? The dating rests on the modelling of the skin, which is an art-historical judgement rather than a physical measurement. Graham-Dixon's 2025 argument requires roughly 1667 to 1668 instead. ## Sources - [1] Mauritshuis, The Hague, collection entry for Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring, inv. 670: catalogue text, technical details, inscriptions and the full provenance statement with its question marks. Catalogue text is a reworked version of P. van der Ploeg and Q. Buvelot, Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis: A Princely Collection, The Hague 2005, pp. 256-258. - [2] Abbie Vandivere, 'The technical (re-)examination of Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring', Heritage Science 8, art. 26 (2020). Editorial introducing the Girl in the Spotlight collection; gives the project team, the method list and the 1881 price of two guilders plus a thirty cent commission. - [3] Abbie Vandivere, Jorgen Wadum and Emilien Leonhardt, 'The Girl in the Spotlight: Vermeer at work, his materials and techniques in Girl with a Pearl Earring', Heritage Science 8, art. 20 (2020). The concluding review paper of the project. - [4] Abbie Vandivere, Jorgen Wadum, Klaas Jan van den Berg and Annelies van Loon, 'From Vermeer Illuminated to The Girl in the Spotlight: approaches and methodologies for the scientific (re-)examination of Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring', Heritage Science 7, art. 66 (2019). Conservation and treatment history, 1881 to 1994. - [5] Abbie Vandivere and others, 'Revealing the painterly technique beneath the surface of Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring using macro- and microscale imaging', Heritage Science 7, art. 64 (2019). Canvas weave, thread counts, cusping, ground and pentimenti. - [6] Abbie Vandivere and others, 'Fading into the background: the dark space surrounding Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring', Heritage Science 7, art. 69 (2019). Background stratigraphy, the copper drier, the signature, and the diagonal lines interpreted as folded fabric. - [7] Annelies van Loon and others, 'Beauty is skin deep: the skin tones of Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring', Heritage Science 7, art. 102 (2019). Flesh paint stratigraphy, the eyelashes, lead white grades and the Derbyshire lead isotope result. - [8] Annelies van Loon and others, 'Out of the blue: Vermeer's use of ultramarine in Girl with a Pearl Earring', Heritage Science 8, art. 19 (2020). Lazurite quality, the sulphur K-edge XANES evidence for heat-treated lapis lazuli, and the chalk question in the headscarf shadow. - [9] Mauritshuis press release, 31 January 2018, 'New research into Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring'. Announces the Girl in the Spotlight project, its dates and its partners. - [10] Mauritshuis press release, 8 January 2026, 'Girl with a Pearl Earring travels to Japan while Mauritshuis is closed'. Osaka loan, the closure dates of 24 August to 20 September 2026, the Asahi Shimbun partnership and the 2012-2014 tour. - [11] Essential Vermeer, catalogue entry for Girl with a Pearl Earring: provenance list, Dissius lot numbers, the tronie discussion and the fake-pearl material. A compiled secondary resource; flagged for replacement with Blankert, Wheelock and the Mauritshuis catalogue raisonne. Note that its 46-guilder figure for lot 38 conflicts with the Mauritshuis. - [12] Jon Boone, 'The Missing Vermeers: A Brief Account of Vermeer's Oeuvre', Essential Vermeer. Corpus counts, the Dissius sale as the source for twenty-one paintings, and the lost works. Compiled secondary resource; flagged for replacement with Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu. - [13] Essential Vermeer, 'Vermeer: Erroneous Attributions and Forgeries'. The history of the corpus count from de Vries 1939 through Gowing, Goldscheider, Blankert, Wheelock and Liedtke, and the National Gallery of Art forgeries. Compiled secondary resource; flagged for replacement with the primary catalogues cited within it. - [14] Essential Vermeer, 'Thore-Burger and the Rediscovery of Johannes Vermeer'. The 1866 Gazette des Beaux-Arts articles with page ranges, Thore's own account of first seeing the paintings, and his collecting. Compiled secondary resource; flagged for replacement with Frances Suzman Jowell's studies and the Gazette articles themselves. - [15] Essential Vermeer, 'Vermeer the Man and Painter', quoting Catharina Bolnes's petition to the States of Holland and West Friesland as given in John Michael Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu: A Web of Social History, Princeton 1989, p. 21. Compiled secondary resource; flagged for replacement with Montias directly. - [16] Marjorie E. Wieseman and others, 'Vermeer's Studio and the Girl with a Flute: New Findings from the National Gallery of Art', Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 14:2 (2022). The technical case for the downgrade and the current Studio of Johannes Vermeer attribution. - [17] The Art Newspaper, 9 January 2026, 'Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring will head to Japan this summer in rare loan'. Confirms the Osaka venue, the closure dates, the funding purpose, the 2012-2014 tour attendance and a working figure of thirty-seven known Vermeers. - [18] Carla Passino, interview with Andrew Graham-Dixon, Country Life, 16 December 2025, on his book Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found. The Magdalena van Ruijven proposal, the redating to c. 1667-1668, and the van Ruijven patronage figures. Recorded here as a published argument, not as an established identification. - [19] Essential Vermeer, 'The Dissius Auction'. The date, venue, lot descriptions, individual prices and the 1,503 guilders and 10 stuivers total for the twenty-one Vermeers. Compiled secondary resource; flagged for replacement with the 1696 sale catalogue and Montias. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.