Vermeer, Jan (1632-1675)
Study of a Young Woman (Meisjeskopje)
1665–1667
Oil on canvas, 44.5 x 40 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Soft light illuminates the face of a young woman dressed in clothing and costume jewelry that would have struck seventeenth-century Dutch viewers as exotic. Like Vermeer’s famous Girl with a Pearl Earring (ca. 1665; Mauritshuis, The Hague), this painting was most likely not a commissioned portrait, but rather a so-called tronie, a portrayal of an intriguing individual, often in fanciful costume. (MET)