Is the girl on the canvas turning towards or away from you? Is she Vermeer’s daughter? His lover? Was it a commissioned work? No one knows for sure and no one can agree. She is the mysterious subject of Dutch master Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring. It is actually often referred to as the “Mona Lisa of the North”. It is quite possible she never even existed in real life, she might only be a result of Vermeer’s imagination – still she draws attention to everyone admiring this artwork.

We have very little knowledge about Vermeer as a person and artist today. He is quite an enigma himself. Never having left his town of birth, Delft, being the father of 15 children and only having 37 paintings clearly attributed to him, he seems as quite a shadowy person in art history – as shadowy as The Girl with a Pearl Earring is depicted in his portrait. The spectator is drawn to it because everything in this painting is unresolved. Nobody knows who exactly she is, if she has ever even existed. Her mouth is slightly opened as if she is just about to say something, but we will never know her words. The look on her face does not exactly tell us what she feels or thinks about. She might turn towards us, she might turn away. Seductive and innocent at the same time, we do not know about the painter’s intention, which part he wanted to capture originally – and here the circle is complete for there is, again, the question: Is she his daughter? Is she his lover?

There are so many mysteries revolving around the unknown young woman in the shadowy painting, it is almost impossible for the spectator to turn away after looking at it for a second, because of the number of questions that come up in his or her mind – as both an aware and unaware process.