少女

Out of a deep black background a young girl turns toward us, a pearl at her ear and a scarf over her shoulders. She is not a conventional beauty, and that is exactly why Vermeer's picture feels so tender.

The story behind the painting

Vermeer painted this work, also called Study of a Young Woman or Girl with a Veil, between 1665 and 1667, around the same time as the far better known Girl with a Pearl Earring. The two are nearly the same size and close in tone and composition, so the picture is sometimes seen as a variant or a companion of the famous girl. Both sitters wear pearl earrings and draped scarves before a plain black ground. It has been suggested, though widely contested, that an optical device such as a camera obscura or a mirror helped in making both.

What to look for

Look at the face: wide-set and flat, with a small nose and thin lips on a relatively large head. Vermeer did not idealise her. The deep black background is unusual for him, since he usually gave his figures rich interiors. Here the girl is isolated, and the darkness seems to heighten her vulnerability and her wish to trust the viewer. Notice how her expression invites questions about what she thinks and feels, a curiosity that runs through many of Vermeer's paintings. The pearl and the soft scarf catch the light against that darkness.

Meaning and intent

Because she lacks idealised beauty, many believe the painting was a commission, though the model may have been Vermeer's own daughter. He probably worked from a live model, yet, as with Girl with a Pearl Earring, he made not a portrait but a tronie, a Dutch word for a face or expression. Such pictures were valued for unusual costumes, intriguing faces, a hint of personality and a show of skill. In 1994 Edward Snow wrote that the painting turns the desire for beauty and perfection into a loving acceptance of what is flawed.

Legacy

The painting may have belonged to Pieter Claesz van Ruijven of Delft before 1674 and then to his family, and it is thought to have been in the Dissius sale of 1696. In 1816 it was sold in Rotterdam for a sum that was tiny even then. Prince Auguste d'Arenberg owned it by 1829, and it stayed with his family in Brussels and Schloss Meppen until the early 1950s. Charles and Jayne Wrightsman bought it in 1959, or 1955 according to another source, and in 1979 gave it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in memory of curator Theodore Rousseau Jr.