Layered Portrait

Johannes Vermeer painted Girl With a Pearl Earring in the 1660s, probably around 1665. She's been mysterious ever since, with no records indicating who she might have been. In fact, most scholars thought she was an idealized subject, meaning Vermeer drew on no real person when he painted her. They cited several reasons -- the odd blue turban, the oversized pearl that lacks any kind of hook or connector to her earlobe, the lack of eyelashes and the featureless dark background.

But in 2018 the museum that houses the painting brought a team of scholars in to study it using X-rays and other advanced imaging techniques. Their findings, published recently, show that the background was not originally featureless but was a green curtain. Time has darkened the pigments so much it can't be easily distinguished by ye olde naked eye. They also found indicators the Vermeer did paint eyelashes although they too can no longer be easily seen.

These factors, head researcher Abbie Vandivere said, suggest that Vermeer might indeed have had a real model as he painted -- although there are still almost no clues as to who she was.

One of the things they did find is that Vermeer didn't skimp on his materials in creating the masterpiece. The girl wears a blue turban and a jacket with blue tones -- and the lapis lazuli which helped make the blue tint Vermeer used was imported from Afghanistan and at the time cost more, ounce for ounce, than gold.

Often we say that great art has layers of meaning that are uncovered as we study it and reflect on what we see. Sometimes, it turns out that figure of speech is even more literally true than we thought it was.