{"id":197802,"date":"2025-10-13T20:01:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T20:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/197802\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T20:01:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T20:01:14","slug":"identity-of-girl-with-a-pearl-earring-revealed-after-360-years-muse-is-10-year-old-daughter-of-johannes-vermeers-patron-historian-argues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/197802\/","title":{"rendered":"Identity of Girl with a Pearl Earring ‘revealed’ after 360 years: Muse is 10-year-old daughter of Johannes Vermeer’s patron, historian argues"},"content":{"rendered":"

For 360 years, her pensive stare has captivated all who have fixed their eyes on hers.<\/p>\n

But as for who the muse in Johannes Vermeer’s 1665 work Girl with a Pearl Earring actually was, that has been an open question.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, a leading expert has backed a theory that the girl was the then 10-year-old daughter of Vermeer’s long-time patron.<\/p>\n

The artist\u00a0worked almost exclusively for Dutch<\/a> husband and wife\u00a0Pieter van Ruijven and Maria de Knuijt, who were part of a radical Christian sect.<\/p>\n

Their daughter, named Magdalena, is ‘likely’ to be the girl wearing the pearl earring in the renowned oil painting, Andrew Graham-Dixon said in the Sunday Times<\/a>\u00a0ahead of the publication of his biography of Vermeer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The girl is dressed as Jesus’s follower Mary Magdalene and is ‘turning, with such depth of feeling, to Jesus Christ’, the historian said.<\/p>\n

In the 2003 film adaptation of\u00a0Tracy Chevalier’s novel, the girl is portrayed by Scarlett Johansson as being a maid in Vermeer’s household.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In that fictionalised account, far from being the daughter of van Ruijven, who is played by Tom Wilkinson, Johansson’s character ends up having a romantic liaison him.<\/p>\n

\"Johannes <\/p>\n

Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring has long captivated all who set eyes on the work, which was painted in 1655<\/p>\n

The real\u00a0Pieter van Ruijven and Maria de Knuijt were both Remonstrants.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The group modelled their lives on the apostles of Jesus Christ and his female followers, including Mary Magdalene.<\/p>\n

At the time, the movement was banned throughout the Netherlands.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As well as being a Remonstrant, Maria – who, rather than Pieter was Vermeer’s main patron – was also part of an even more radical outgrowth of the moment whose members were known as Collegiants.<\/p>\n

Both the Remonstrants and Collegiants were pacifists and republicans, as well as being devoted to charity and philanthropy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vermeer was also brought up a Remonstrant and participated in Collegiants’ gatherings.<\/p>\n

Mr Graham-Dixon said: ‘Every single one of his paintings was inspired by the religious beliefs cherished by Marie de Knuijt and those close to her, who included Vermeer himself.’<\/p>\n

On the subject of Girl With a Pearl Earring, he added: ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring, made even more famous by Tracy Chevalier’s fictionalised account of the girl in her novel and the film adaptation starring Scarlett Johansson, is likely to be a portrait of Maria and Pieter’s daughter, Magdalena.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Vermeer <\/p>\n

Vermeer worked almost exclusively for Dutch husband and wife Pieter van Ruijven and Maria de Knuijt, who were part of a radical Christian sect<\/p>\n

\"Girl <\/p>\n

Girl with a Pearl Earring on display at the\u00a0Mauritshuis in The Hague, 2014<\/p>\n

‘She would have been 12 in the autumn of 1667, and assuming that she was a Collegiant like her parents, she would have solemnised her commitment to Christ at that age.’<\/p>\n

Maria left Vermeer a substantial sum of money in her will and commissioned and owned most his paintings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr Graham-Dixon’s new book,\u00a0Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found, is published by Allen Lane later this month.<\/p>\n

However, his fellow expert Ruth Millington, the author of\u00a0Muse: Uncovering the Hidden Figures Behind Art History’s Masterpieces, said Girl With a Pearl Earring should not be interpreted as a portrait of an identifiable person.<\/p>\n

She told the Daily Mail: ‘Art historians love to claim new discoveries but this theory has been around for quite some time, as I discovered while writing Muse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"In <\/p>\n

In the 2003 film adaptation of Tracy Chevalier’s novel, the girl is portrayed by Scarlett Johansson as being a maid in Vermeer’s household<\/p>\n

‘Experts such as Dr Judith Noorman have previously argued that the daughter of Vermeer’s patron was the real Girl with a Pearl Earring.<\/p>\n

‘But really the allure of this painting is the mystery of the muse. It’s not meant to be a direct portrait of a sitter who can be easily identified, but rather a “tronie”, a picture of an imaginary figure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Too often, people read paintings as purely biographical when there’s more complexity to them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘For instance, the Mona Lisa’s real model was actually Leonardo da Vinci’s male studio assistant but the picture is not meant to be read as a direct portrait of him!<\/p>\n

‘Artists like to keep us guessing, that’s what keeps us coming back to look at Girl with a Pearl Earring.’\u00a0<\/p>\n

Girl with a Pearl Earring was painted by Vermeer in 1665. The artist died a decade later aged just 43.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For 360 years, her pensive stare has captivated all who have fixed their eyes on hers. But as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,97,1120,96,1293,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-197802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-dailymail","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-history","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}