Girl with a Pearl Earring
painting by Johannes Vermeer
Girl with a Pearl Earring (Dutch: Meisje met de parel) is an oil painting by Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer, dated c. 1665. Going by various names over the centuries, it acquired its present title towards the end of the 20th century. The work has been in the collection of the Mauritshuis in The Hague since 1902 and has been the subject of various literary and cinematic treatments.
Description
The painting is a tronie, the Dutch 17th-century description of a "head" that was not meant to be a portrait. It depicts a European girl wearing "exotic dress", an "oriental turban", and what appears to be a very large pearl as an earring. The work is oil on canvas and is 44.5 cm (17.5 in) tall by 39 cm (15 in) wide. It is signed "IVMeer" but not dated. It is estimated to have been painted around 1665.
The most recent (1994) restoration of the painting brought out hidden subtleties in the colour scheme and deepened the intimacy of the girl's gaze towards the viewer.
The public source identifies “Girl with a Pearl Earring” as painting by Johannes Vermeer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Girl, Pearl and Earring.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Girl with a Pearl Earring”, the useful work is to connect “painting by Johannes Vermeer” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q185372. VIAF identifies the subject as 174026082. The Library of Congress control number is no2003027768. Authority coordinates are 52.080, 4.314. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1665, 1902 and 1994.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Girl with a Pearl Earring” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.