The novel is a historical fiction inspired by the emblematic painting and the mysterious life of Vermeer, but there’s actually no evidence to prove the story, and I don’t think it was never Chevalier’s intention to pass it in that way.

It made me wonder what Vermeer did to her to make her look like that at him. That curiosity was what led me to write a novel about the painting: I wanted to explore the mystery of her gaze. To me Girl with a Pearl Earring is neither a universal tronie, nor a portrait of a specific person.

Entertainment News. LONDON (Reuters) – A painting of Saint Praxedis by Johannes Vermeer, the 17th-century Dutch master who painted “The Girl with the Pearl Earring,” sold at auction on Tuesday for 6,242,500 pounds ($10.62 million), Christie’s said on its Twitter feed.

The novel centers on Griet, the Protestant daughter of a Delft tile painter who lost his sight in a kiln accident. In order to bring income to her struggling family, Griet must work as a maid for a more financially sound family.

Girl with a Pearl Earring represents a young woman in a dark shallow space, an intimate setting that draws the viewer’s attention exclusively on her. Unlike the Mona Lisa, however, Girl with a Pearl Earring is not a portrait but a tronie, a Dutch term for a character or type of person.

Oil Paint

Dutch Golden Age

Vermeer painted Girl with a Pearl Earring around 1665. It is one of just 35 paintings attributed to the painter, who saw moderate success during his lifetime. Along with another genre painting (titled The Milkmaid), Girl with a Pearl Earring is Vermeer’s most well-known work of art.

Johannes Vermeer

The Mona Lisa was originally this type of portrait, but over time its meaning has shifted and it has become an icon of the Renaissance—perhaps the most recognized painting in the world. The Mona Lisa is a likely a portrait of the wife of a Florentine merchant.

The Mona Lisa bears a strong resemblance to many Renaissance depictions of the Virgin Mary, who was at that time seen as an ideal for womanhood. The painting was one of the earliest portraits to depict the sitter in front of an imaginary landscape, and Leonardo was one of the first painters to use aerial perspective.

the Ghent Altarpiece

Vincenzo Peruggia (8 October 1881 – 8 October 1925) was an Italian museum worker, artist, and thief, most famous for stealing the Mona Lisa on 21 August 1911….

Mona Lisa

One long-standing mystery of the painting is why Mona Lisa features very faint eyebrows and apparently does not have any eyelashes. In October 2007, Pascal Cotte, a French engineer and inventor, says he discovered with a high-definition camera that Leonardo da Vinci originally did paint eyebrows and eyelashes.

Why is Mona Lisa priceless? The Mona Lisa was extremely famous before it was stolen. It was one of the first portraits using a Fibonacci sequence (Da Vinci was quite an engineer and actually considered art his hobby). Although commissioned, Da Vinci was horrible about finishing anything.