Girl with a Pearl Earring Themes

Griet lives in Delft—in the Netherlands—during an era in which, as her mother says, art can be found everywhere and paintings can be purchased by the lowliest maid for just a few days’ wages. But not everyone is as sensitive to the power of art as Griet. Vermeer’s patron, van Ruijven, for instance, seems to value his collection’s ability to telegraph wealth and status more than he cares about the paintings themselves. Still…

Although she quietly and without complaint fulfills most of her duties (to God, to her mother and father, to Vermeer), Griet also expresses distress over feeling obliged to return someone’s favor. This includes a feeling of indebtedness to Pieter for bringing her news of her quarantined family during a plague outbreak, and to Vermeer for shielding her from one of Cornelia’s plots. She also suspects that her family encourages Pieter’s courtship in…

When Griet arrives at Papists’ Corner, she discovers a house dominated by women—Vermeer’s mother-in-law Maria Thins, his wife Catharina, his four daughters, and the family housekeeper, Tanneke. But these women live in a male-dominated world, and none of them are allowed to forget it. Vermeer forbids Catharina, Tanneke, and the children from entering his studio. Van Leeuwenhoek holds a perpetual grudge against Catharina and demands that she stay out of…

Griet leaves her parents’ house to go to work as a maid because the family needs her income after an accident deprives her father of his sight. In contrast to her blind father, Griet’s new master, the painter Johannes Vermeer, paints images that show normal, everyday things, in a completely different light. Griet herself lies somewhere between the two, slower to catch on to subtleties than her master but nevertheless keenly observant of…