“One of the things that makes this painting so spectacularly appealing is that we don’t know,” Ms.

Trying to figure out the identity of the real-life “Girl” - if there even was one - isn’t a question for research. Gordenker said that in reality, the picture probably wasn’t painted as a portrait of any particular person. Chevalier imagined the fictional subject for Vermeer’s painting as a housemaid who is invited into the inner sanctum of the master’s studio, and allowed to wear his wife’s pearl earring for the portrait, creating a certain frisson between the artist and his model. Nicolaes Tulp” and “The Goldfinch” by Carel Fabritius - until a major exhibition in collaboration with the National Gallery of Art in Washington in 1995, followed by the publication of Tracy Chevalier’s best-selling novel of the same name four years later and the subsequent 2003 film, starring Scarlett Johansson. The work wasn’t considered to be a particular highlight of the collection - which also includes Rembrandt’s “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. The “Girl” has been on display in the Mauritshuis since 1881. These can later be used to create high-resolution computer visualizations of the painting that were never possible before. The technologies that have been brought together for this examination will “cull a few terabytes of data,” said Joris Dik, one of the lead researchers, from Delft University of Technology. Today’s imaging tools are noninvasive, which means there’s nary a brush or Q-tip in sight, and there will be no removal of particles. In 1994, researchers employed tools such as X-radiography, UV photography and infrared reflectography, and took tiny paint samples out of the painting. It has been more than two decades since Vermeer’s so-called “Mona Lisa of the North” has been the subject of an examination, and since that time, there has been a great deal of advancement in the tools used to examine artworks. We wanted to make sure that for people who will come, they get taken along in the process.”

“Occasionally she’ll be lying on a bed with all kinds of cameras hanging around her, so you might not be able to see her as usual, or she might be half covered by a scanner. “Getting the ‘Girl’ out of her frame means that she’s not visible in the way that she normally is for visitors, and that was a big concern for us because people come from far and wide to see this picture,” Ms.

The girl with the pearl earring