The Hague Shows ‘Girl With A Pearl Earring’ Fan Portraits While Original Is Away
Video screenshot via My Girl with a Pearl
The Girl with a Pearl Earring is currently on a business trip in Amsterdam, as part of the largest-ever Johannes Vermeer exhibition in history. To fill the pearl-shaped hole in its heart, the Mauritshuis museum in the Hague is displaying fan remakes in her place until her return from the Rijksmuseum.
My Girl with a Pearl is the result of an open call that the Mauritshuis had sent out last year to reimagine the 1655 masterpiece with a fun, personal twist. Its request drew 3,482 submissions from art lovers everywhere, who recreated the famous painting in various mediums and materials—from textiles, glass beads, balloons, and flower petals, to buttons, wood, clay, ceramics, vegetables, shells, LEGO pieces, and even as tattoos.
Of these, the institution has curated 170 renditions, and they’re now on rotation via a digital frame where their muse is supposed to be.
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The exhibit is a physical manifestation of the Mauritshuis’ long-running My Girl with a Pearl Instagram series, where it collects and showcases all sorts of imaginative tributes to the alluring yet relatable subject.
“The presentation My Girl with a Pearl shows that the Girl is recognizable in everything and everyone. In a son or daughter, in buttons, an iron or just a few swipes of a brush,” describes the museum.
Till today, the iconic artwork continues to bedazzle and mystify. The “pearl” wasn’t always its star accessory—the painting was once called Girl with a Turban as the sitter’s “exotic” garments were the most fascinating features of the time. Recently, the work has raised questions again as experts now believe the gem is an imitation pearl.
My Girl with a Pearl will be on show until April 1, which is when the original Girl with a Pearl Earring is expected to make its return.
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[via Colossal and The Mauritshuis, videos and images via My Girl with a Pearl]
