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Intro
In the spring of 1664, Griet chops vegetables in her family kitchen when her mother ushers in Catharina and Johannes Vermeer. Griet’s father, formerly a master tile painter, has been blinded in an accident and can no longer work. With her younger brother, Frans, already bound to an apprenticeship, Griet must take work as a maid to support her parents and sister Agnes. The next morning, Griet crosses the city. She will live and work at Vermeer’s house, allowed to visit home on Sundays. There, she becomes responsible for acquiring the Vermeer family’s daily meat and doing laundry.
Quick, perceptive Griet ingratiates herself with Tanneke, the housekeeper, and earns the respect of Catharina’s shrewd mother, Maria Thins. But Griet distrusts Catharina and her unruly, mischievous daughter Cornelia. As she begins to clean the studio, Griet becomes enthralled with Vermeer’s intimate and light-filled paintings. These contrast sharply with his disinterested attitude towards his family and aloof treatment of Griet. Over the summer, she meets his lascivious patron van Ruijven, plague strikes the city, and kills her sister Agnes. In the fall, the birth of the newest Vermeer child, Franciscus, momentarily distracts Griet from her grief. But then a long, cold winter sets in.
Early in 1665, Griet looks over her shoulder as she washes the studio windows. Vermeer is studying her intently. Soon he asks her to assist him, first by running errands, then by grinding pigments. He arranges for her to sleep in the attic, which is only accessible through the studio. Their increasing intimacy causes strife in the household. Cornelia exposes Griet’s secret work, and Tanneke and Catharina each begin to mistreat her. Still, Griet finds solace in the studio, becoming bolder in her efforts to help Vermeer. At the same time, Pieter, the son of Pieter the Butcher, begins to seriously court her.
When Vermeer takes Catharina’s jewelry and jewelry box to use as props for his latest work, she becomes upset over the idea of her things being left overnight in the studio with Griet. Cornelia hatches a plot to frame Griet for stealing Catharina’s tortoiseshell combs. But when Griet explains the situation to Vermeer, he sides with the maid. Griet’s evident importance to him softens Tanneke’s and Catherine’s mistreatment of her—after all, the whole household depends on his paintings for their support. But it also increases their resentment of her.
In the fall of 1665, Maria Thins convinces van Ruijven to commission a large multi-subject painting. Van Ruijven wants Griet to model so that he can have physical access to her, but Maria and Vermeer conspire to shield her from his attention, at least directly. In exchange for keeping her out of the one painting, Vermeer promises van Ruijven a secret portrait of Griet. Initially horrified, Griet begins to treasure sitting for Vermeer. When he directs her to model while wearing Catharina’s pearl earrings, she tries but can’t refuse. No sooner is the portrait done than Cornelia reveals it to Catharina. Griet runs from the house and accepts Pieter’s proposal of marriage.
Ten years later, Tanneke summons Griet to the house. Vermeer has recently died, and Griet assumes Catharina intends to settle the family’s account with the family’s former butcher and his son, who’s now her husband. Instead, she learns that Vermeer left instructions for Catharina to give Griet the pearl earrings. Knowing she can never wear them, Griet sells them to a pawnbroker.
