The identity of the muse in the Girl with a Pearl Earring has been revealed for the first time in 360 years.
A historian believes he has uncovered the name of the girl in the artwork which was painted by Johannes Vermeer in the 1660s.
Her identity has long been a mystery in the art world and the centre of debate, with little known about the Dutch master who painted her.
But Andrew Graham-Dixon, the art historian and TV presenter, found that Vermeer worked almost exclusively for Pieter van Ruijven and Maria de Knuijt, a Dutch husband and wife in Delft.
The girl wearing the pearl earring in the renowned oil painting is likely their daughter, Magdalene, he claims.
The wealthy family were members of a rebellious religious sect called the Remonstrants, with the wife a member of the Collegiants, who were even more extreme.
The evangelical Christians were a proscribed organisation and had Quaker-like beliefs such as pacifism and egalitarian society. They were also believers in feminism and the absolute equality of men and women.
Maria was Vermeer’s principal commissioner, a new book on the artist’s life by Graham-Dixon claims, and her house was close to a church of the Remonstrants.
“Research into Vermeer’s family background shows that he was born and brought up a Remonstrant, and that he too participated in the gatherings of the Collegiants,” the historian writes in the Sunday Times Culture magazine.
“The same is true of his mother and father, sister and brother-in-law, indeed of almost everyone in his immediate circle.
“His wife was a Catholic, but she too must have been in sympathy with the Remonstrants, or she could not have married a man so committed to their cause.”
The group, including Vermeer, revered Christ’s apostles and Mary Magdalene in particular.
“Every single one of his paintings was inspired by the religious beliefs cherished by Marie de Knuijt and those close to her, who included Vermeer himself,” Graham-Dixon writes.
This information helps understand Vermeer’s work and muses, he adds. The solemnity of his paintings reflect this, as does the fact almost all of the people in his works are female.
His most famous work, the Girl with a Pearl Earring, reflects this the most and the girl is probably Magdalena, the daughter of his sponsors, and the portrait reflects her committing herself to her faith as a Collegiant.
“The picture shows her marking that by dressing as Mary Magdalene, turning, with such depth of feeling, to Jesus Christ,” Graham-Dixon says.
The historian accepts that his conclusions “fly in the face of most modern preconceptions about [Vermeer’s] work” but he is convinced of this theory, and that others will be relieved by his findings.