do with the fact the painting is not a formal portrait. It is a type of painting that the Dutch in the 17th century called a »TRONIE« , which means »FACE« . These were highly popular study-like paintings that depict heads or faces of certain characters or types rather than recognizable persons. Sometimes these were 'exotic types', which is also the case with the »GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING« . She is wearing a turban-style headscarf - Dutch girls in the 17th century typically did not wear turbans. Vermeer used
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this accessory to turn his model into an exotic, Eastern figure. Also, the eye-catching, oversized pearl earring adds to the EXOTIC air of the painting. The girls' idealized, beautiful face and her unusual attire lend the picture a timeless, even mysterious character.
How can the work be located in art history: what shaped the period in which Vermeer was an artist? Vermeer’s choice of subject pose and costume for the »GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING« seems to
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