Two years ago, a team of scientists examined Vermeer’s masterpiece The Girl with the Pearl Earring (c. 1665) in the Mauritshuis museum. Now they present their results.
The famous painting by Johannes Vermeer, The Girl with a Pearl Earring, was the object of research in 2018. Scientists from all over the world got the opportunity to try out their techniques on the Mona Lisa of the North.
How did Vermeer create this painting? What lies beneath the visible composition? What kind of pigments did he use? Where did they come from? How has the painting changed since it left Vermeer’s studio? These were some of the questions the researchers were interested in. Amongst them were TU Delft researchers from three faculties.
Mathijs van Hengstum (Mechanical Engineering) made a special scanner to map the cracks on the painting; Tom Callewaert (Applied Sciences) used optical coherence tomography to scan the translucent layers; and Willemijn Elkhuizen and Tessa Essers (Industrial Design) measured the gloss variations of the painting.
Now, two years later, the team, who also include researchers from the National Gallery of Art Washington, the University of Antwerp and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, unveils its discoveries.
The curtain has disappeared over the centuries
One of the most surprising findings, according to a press release issued by the Mauritshuis, was that the background is not simply an empty dark space. Vermeer painted the Girl in front of a green curtain. Imaging techniques visualised diagonal lines and colour variations that suggest folded fabric in the upper right-hand corner of the painting, the press release states. The curtain has disappeared over the centuries as a result of physical and chemical changes in the translucent green paint.
The new research revealed that Vermeer made changes to the composition during the painting process: the position of the ear, the top of the headscarf and the back of the neck were shifted.
Composite image of Girl with a Pearl Earring from images made during the Girl in the Spotlight project. (Image: Sylvain Fleur and the Girl in the Spotlight team)Various shades of brown and black
The study also gave insights in the painting techniques. Vermeer began composing the painting in various shades of brown and black. Infrared imaging showed broad vigorous brushstrokes in these underlayers, which now lie beneath the visible paint. He painted the contours of the Girl with thin black lines.
The painter worked systematically from the background to the foreground: after painting the greenish background and the skin of the Girl’s face, he then successively painted her yellow jacket, white collar, headscarf and ‘pearl’. The pearl is an illusion – translucent and opaque touches of white paint – and the hook to hang the ‘pearl’ from her ear is missing.
This is not a potrait
The research identified and accurately mapped Vermeer’s colour palette in this painting for the first time. The raw materials for the colours came from all over the world: regions that today are part of Mexico and Central America, England and possibly Asia or the West Indies. Vermeer’s liberal use of high-quality ultramarine in the headscarf and the jacket is striking. Made from the semi-precious stone lapis lazuli that came from what is now Afghanistan, the preparation of natural ultramarine was time-consuming and laborious. In the 17th century, the pigment was more precious than gold.
Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring was not a portrait. It displays too few distinctive features for that. In Vermeer’s day these kind of studies were referred to as tronies. They depict a certain type or character; in this case a girl wearing an oriental turban and an improbably large pearl in her ear. The researchers did not find out who this young lady was and if she ever really existed.
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tomas.vandijk@tudelft.nl
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