Girl with a Pearl Earring

In 1660s Delft, sixteen-year-old Griet becomes a servant in the household of Johannes Vermeer after her father is blinded in an accident. Her duties place her between Vermeer’s volatile wife Catharina, his practical mother-in-law Maria Thins, their children and the patron Pieter van Ruijven. Griet’s sensitivity to colour and composition attracts the painter’s attention, and she begins assisting privately in his studio.

Vermeer gradually asks Griet to pose for a painting, wearing his wife’s pearl earring and adopting an intimacy that threatens her position in the household. She must balance loyalty to her family, pressure from the butcher’s son Pieter and the demands of men who treat her labour and appearance as possessions. The novel imagines the relationship behind the painting while reconstructing domestic service, artistic patronage and social hierarchy during the Dutch Golden Age.