![]() The painting may have been one of “two tronies painted in the Turkish fashion” mentioned in the 1679(?) inventory of Vermeer’s belongings after his death ( twee tronijnen geschildert op sijn Turx). Vermeer painted the Girl as a tronie: a character study. The other blue pigment used in the Girl was indigo, which was mixed with a yellow organic lake (weld on a chalk substrate) to create a green glaze as a top layer in the background. A trace amount of ultramarine was also found in the pink flesh paint. 1a), Vermeer used ultramarine extensively in the Girl’s headscarf, and mixed with other pigments in the shadows of her yellow jacket. 1670–1672, National Gallery London) to produce a distinctive blue-green colour. More unusually, Vermeer combined ultramarine with green earth in the dress of Young Woman Seated at a Virginal (c. ![]() 1663–1664, Rijksmuseum), ultramarine was incorporated throughout: in the blue dress, tablecloth, upholstery of the chairs, while small additions also give the white rear wall its bluish tinge. In Vermeer’s Girl in Blue Reading a Letter (c. They not only used it for blues, but also in mixtures: for instance, mixed with yellow lake or lead–tin yellow to make green, or in small quantities with white paint to make it appear even whiter. Its presence may even have enhanced the value of a painting for collectors. Dutch high-life genre painters, including Vermeer, were especially fond of ultramarine, and its distinctive intense blue colour. Ultramarine was by far the most expensive blue pigment available in the seventeenth century. The analyses and reconstructions led to the hypothesis that the blue headscarf originally contained a wider range of different blue colour shades: an opaque light blue for the left (lit) zone, a slightly brighter opaque blue for the middle zone, and a deep dark blue-green glaze with alternating blue-green glazing brushstrokes for the shadow zone-now largely compromised by paint degradation. Schematic paint reconstructions were made to investigate the effect of the addition of chalk or yellow lake on the paint properties. The question was raised as to whether extra chalk was added deliberately to the paint to adjust the handling properties or opacity, or whether the chalk was the substrate of a-now faded-yellow lake. The shadow part of the headscarf has a remarkably patchy appearance, due to paint degradation that is probably related to the large amounts of chalk Vermeer mixed in the ultramarine paint in this area. The entire painting was imaged using MS-IRR, MA-XRF, RIS, and digital microscopy to reveal the distribution of materials of the headscarf, and to give more insight into Vermeer’s painting process. Analysis with synchrotron sulphur K-edge XANES suggested that the ultramarine pigment was prepared-at least in part-from a heat-treated lapis lazuli rock. Analysis of micro-samples mounted as cross-sections using SEM–EDX and FTIR-ATR showed that Vermeer used high-quality ultramarine in the blue headscarf, based on the relative abundance of bright blue particles of lazurite. The painting was examined using a range of micro- and macroscale techniques as part of the Girl in the Spotlight research project (2018). ![]() This paper reveals new findings about ultramarine in the headscarf of Girl with a Pearl Earring (c. ![]() Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) is known for his brilliant blue colours, and his frequent use of the costly natural ultramarine.
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