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17 October 2016

The Girl with a Ball Bearing Earring? A case study of when science unpicks art

A prominent scientist in the Netherlands believes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring isn’t actually wearing a pearl. Here’s how he investigated his hunch.

By Sonia van Gilder-Cooke

The Duchess of Cambridge – always so careful about accessories – must have thought she had got this one right. On her first solo trip abroad to the Netherlands, she wore pearl earrings to view seventheenth-century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer’s famous Girl with a Pearl Earring at a museum in the Hague. “The girls with pearls,” The Telegraph crooned, noting that the queen herself had leant Kate the earrings for the trip.


Photo: Getty

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