Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18362 in Books
• Published on: 2006-07-03
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From Amazon.co.uk
The Dutch painter Vermeer has remained one of the great enigmas of 17th-century Dutch art. While little is known of his personal life, his extraordinary paintings of natural and domestic life, with their subtle play of light and colour, have come to define the Dutch Golden Age. The mysterious portrait of the anonymous Girl with a Pearl Earring has fascinated art historians for centuries, and it is this magnetic painting that lies at the heart of Tracy Chevalier's second novel of the same title.

Girl with a Pearl Earring centres on Vermeer's prosperous household in Delft in the 1660s. The appointment of the quiet, perceptive heroine of the novel, the servant Griet, gradually throws the household into turmoil as Vermeer and Griet become increasingly intimate, an increasingly tense situation that culminates in her working for Vermeer as his assistant, and ultimately sitting for him as a model. Chevalier deliberately cultivates a limpid, painstakingly observed style in homage to Vermeer, and the complex domestic tensions of the Vermeer household are vividly evoked, from the jealous, vain, young wife to the wise, taciturn mother-in-law. At times the relationship between servant and master seems a little anachronistic, but Girl with a Pearl Earring does contain a final delicious twist in its tail. Chevalier acknowledges her debt to Simon Schama's classic study of the Dutch Golden Age, The Embarrassment of Riches, and the novel comes hard on the heels of Deborah Moggach's similar tale of domestic intrigue behind the easel of 17th-century Dutch painting, Tulip Fever.

Girl with a Pearl Earring is a fascinating piece of speculative historical fiction, but how much more can novelists extract from the Dutch Golden Age? --Jerry Brotton

Amazon.co.uk Review
The Dutch painter Vermeer has remained one of the great enigmas of 17th-century Dutch art. While little is known of his personal life, his extraordinary paintings of natural and domestic life, with their subtle play of light and colour, have come to define the Dutch Golden Age. The mysterious portrait of the anonymous Girl with a Pearl Earring has fascinated art historians for centuries, and it is this magnetic painting that lies at the heart of Tracy Chevalier's second novel of the same title.

Girl with a Pearl Earring centres on Vermeer's prosperous household in Delft in the 1660s. The appointment of the quiet, perceptive heroine of the novel, the servant Griet, gradually throws the household into turmoil as Vermeer and Griet become increasingly intimate, an increasingly tense situation that culminates in her working for Vermeer as his assistant, and ultimately sitting for him as a model. Chevalier deliberately cultivates a limpid, painstakingly observed style in homage to Vermeer, and the complex domestic tensions of the Vermeer household are vividly evoked, from the jealous, vain, young wife to the wise, taciturn mother-in-law. At times the relationship between servant and master seems a little anachronistic, but Girl with a Pearl Earring does contain a final delicious twist in its tail. Chevalier acknowledges her debt to Simon Schama's classic study of the Dutch Golden Age, The Embarrassment of Riches, and the novel comes hard on the heels of Deborah Moggach's similar tale of domestic intrigue behind the easel of 17th-century Dutch painting, Tulip Fever.

Girl with a Pearl Earring is a fascinating piece of speculative historical fiction, but how much more can novelists extract from the Dutch Golden Age? --Jerry Brotton

Synopsis
A sumptuous new look for Tracy Chevalier's bestselling novel. Griet, the young daughter of a tilemaker in seventeenth century Holland, obtains her first job, as a servant in Vermeer's household. Tracy Chevalier shows us, through Griet's eyes, the complicated family, the society of the small town of Delft, and life with an obsessive genius. Griet loves being drawn into his artistic life, and leaving her former drudgery, but the cost to her own survival may be high.

Customer Reviews

Interesting concept but lacking spark
I thought the novel was based on an interesting concept - making a story to fit a painting. Quite often I will see a painting or photograph and wonder the story behind it and so I can see how this came about.

I thought the descriptions of Delft were interesting and the author had certainly done her homework. I had to award this book 3 stars because whilst the story was relatively enjoyable I kept hanging on thinking it was going to move a little faster, that some scandal was going to occur, that in fact anything was going to happen. It was a gentle read, but for me, it needed a bit of spark.

breathtaking
this is without a doubt the most beautiful book ever written. I have read it what seems like a million times and i love every moment. the way in which chevalier describes the city, the people and vermeer's studio is so evocative. i thoroughly recommend this book.

The artist and his muse
I adored this book finding it very evocative of a time when social standing was everything ... with servants naturally at the bottom, tradesmen in the middle with their own pecking order in the Guilds, and then the noblemen patrons.
Griet is forced down a level - when her father can no longer work as a tile artist her family becomes impoverished, and she is sent to work for the Vermeers. Soon the artist sees something in her and, initially unknown to the matriarch of the family, starts using Griet as his assistant. Their relationship has very few words and is unrequited although intense. Eventually Vermeer's wife finds out and Vermeer engineers to get Griet out of the house - she marries the butcher's son.
Although we know very little about Vermeer's life, we do know enough about the techniques of painting, including use of the camera obscura to help get proportions right, that the author can write convincingly about the creation of great works of art.
We see everything through Griet's eyes and we find she has an artist's vision herself for detail when she helps to improve a painting by altering the drape of a tablecloth in the setting.
Superb.