Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

First published: 1999

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Historical

Time of plot: 1664-1666 and 1676

Locale: Delft, the Netherlands

Principal characters

• Griet, a maid
• Johannes Vermeer, a painter
• Catharina, his wife
• Maria Thins, Catharina’s mother
• Maertge, ,
• Cornelia, ,
• Aleydis, ,
• Lisbeth, and
• Johannes, the Vermeer children
• Tanneke, the family’s housekeeper
• Pieter, a butcher’s son
• Pieter van Ruijven, Vermeer’s patron
• Antonio van Leeuwenhoek, Vermeer’s friend

The Story:

After her father is blinded by an explosion at a kiln factory, sixteen-year-old Griet has to begin work as a maid in the household of painter Johannes Vermeer. Her wages will help sustain her newly poor family. The Vermeer household includes Catharina, Vermeer’s pregnant wife, who dislikes Griet on sight; Maria Thins, Catharina’s powerful mother; and five children—Maertge, Lisbeth, Cornelia, Aleydis, and baby Johannes. Griet immediately suspects that Cornelia will be a difficult child.

The family housekeeper, Tanneke, explains to Griet her duties as a maid, including washing, ironing, mending, cooking, shopping, and, most important, cleaning Vermeer’s studio. Griet is instructed to be extremely careful and to not move anything out of place. Griet thinks how difficult this could be, trying to dust under objects set up for painting, but she works out a method, using her arm and hand to measure distances between objects as she removes them. Vermeer approves of her cleaning.

Vermeer is working on a painting of the wife of his patron, Pieter van Ruijven. She is dressed in a yellow mantle trimmed with ermine and wearing a pearl necklace and pearl earrings. Griet is fascinated by the painting and yearns to know the painter.

On Sunday, her first day off (and the only one she will have each week), Griet visits her parents, who ply her with questions about the house and the painter. Griet describes the painting in detail to her father.

One day, Vermeer’s friend Antonio van Leeuwenhoek arrives with a strange box that he identifies as a camera obscura. Vermeer shows Griet how it operates, and encourages her to look through it. He says it is a tool to help him see things better, and she comes to understand that he sees things in a way others do not.

Meantime, Griet has become friendly with Pieter, a butcher’s son. One day, he tells her that the plague has struck the neighborhood where her parents live, and that her sister, Agnes, is ill. On another Sunday, she visits her brother, Franz, in the kiln factory where he is working as an apprentice. She learns that the difficult circumstances under which he works are punishment for his inappropriate attentions to the owner’s wife.

Vermeer’s painting of van Ruijven’s wife is finished, and everyone is satisfied with it. The painting is taken from the home before Griet can get a final look at it. Van Ruijven, whose eye has been on Griet for some time, manages to corner her one day, but he is stymied in his attempts by the kindly van Leeuwenhoek, who keeps van Ruijven away from her.

Vermeer begins to paint again; his next subject is the baker’s daughter. For this work, he secretly asks Griet to assist him, first by buying colors at the apothecary and then by grinding pigments. He also shows her how a painting is created. The two work closely together, but her assistance is kept secret from the rest of the household. Family members, especially Catharina, would be jealous if they knew of the maid’s privileged position.

Pieter, the butcher’s son, is now a serious suitor, interested in Griet’s hand. He goes to her family’s church and is invited by Griet’s parents to Sunday dinners. Griet repels his advances, though, telling him that at age seventeen, she is not ready.

Vermeer finishes the painting of the baker’s daughter and begins another painting for van Ruijven. At one point, Griet sees something she thinks is not right in the painting and dares to change the folds of the drapery left in position for the model. Despite the seriousness of her actions, Vermeer nevertheless agrees with the change and remarks that he has learned something from her.

Cornelia has played several mean tricks on Griet. This time, she secretly places her mother’s tortoise-shell combs among Griet’s belongings. Griet finds the objects and, horrified of being accused of theft, requests Vermeer’s help in identifying the true culprit, Cornelia. Soon, she is punished. Griet now feels indebted to Vermeer, but is disappointed that he has not yet revealed to Catharina her assistance in his work. Still, Griet now has an identity in the household, and she grows even closer to Vermeer, so much so that her brother Franz says he can see that she wants him.

Vermeer next decides to paint Griet, at van Ruijven’s insistence. In preparation for the pose, she is asked to remove her maid’s cap to show her hair, but she refuses to do so. Instead, she creates a turban with pieces of blue and gold cloth. As the painting proceeds, both she and Vermeer conclude that something is missing. She dreads the decision she knows is coming—that she wear Catharina’s pearl earring. Griet is at first reluctant, because she realizes it will mean the end for her in the household. She cannot refuse the master, though, so she pierces her own ear. Vermeer inserts the earring, then insists she wear both pieces.

Catharina and Cornelia come to the studio to view the finished painting. Catharina explodes in a rage, infuriated that a maid should wear her beloved earrings. She picks up a palette knife and moves forward to slash the painting, but Vermeer stops her. Griet leaves the house.

It is now ten years later, and Griet is married to Pieter and has two little boys, one named Jan, for Vermeer. Griet learns that Vermeer has died. In the years after working in the Vermeer household, Griet has not seen the painter, except from a distance. In her maturity she has decided that he cared more for the painting than he did for her.

One day, the Vermeer’s housekeeper, Tanneke, requests Griet’s presence at the Vermeer house so that Catharina—reluctantly—can fulfill her late husband’s wish: for Griet to have the pearl earrings. Griet takes them but, knowing they are inappropriate for a butcher’s wife, sells them for twenty guilders.

Bibliography

Andres, Sophia. “From Camelot to Hyde Park: The Lady of Shalott’s Pre-Raphaelite Postmodernism in A. S. Byatt and Tracy Chevalier.” Victorians Institute Journal 34 (2006): 7-37. Examines Chevalier’s talent from a feminist perspective, looking at her blending of history and fiction and her giving voice to women in paintings.

Baker, Barbaraz, ed. The Way We Write: Interviews with Award-Winning Writers. New York: Continuum, 2006. A collection of interviews with novelists, playwrights, and others, including Chevalier, who discuss their methods of writing. Chevalier comments about her interest in history, her use of the first person, and the balancing act between fact and fiction.

Cibelli, Deborah H. “Girl with a Pearl Earring: Painting, Reality, Fiction.” Journal of Popular Culture 37, no. 4 (May, 1994): 383-392. Discusses Chevalier’s methodological assumptions and the use of historical accounts of Vermeer’s art and Dutch culture. Concludes that Chevalier’s approach to creating a novel from a specific painting is unique.

Strout, Cushing. “Fact, Fiction, and Vermeer.” Sewanee Review 109, no. 2 (2001): ixvi-ixix. A brief, positive review of the novel in which Strout notes the religious and class differences and praises Chevalier for her intelligent methods of fictionalizing history.