How a work of art climbs to the iconic cookie tumble status, there is no manual for that. But if we are the popularity of it Girl with the Pearl We may come to follow. In 1665 Johannes Vermeer painted a canvas that was known for more than three centuries as a ‘girl with turban’. Until the marketing department of the Mauritshuis in 1995 thought that the attention had to be on the thick glimmer. It became ‘girl with the pearl’. Later it turned out that such a shiny knotfish could not be a pearl at all, but the name had already gone all over the world. And what does it matter, the girl with the fake parel has not really posed for Vermeer either. It is a tronie, a portrait of the imagination. Actually how chatgpt would work now if you would prompt ‘fanatically’ with ‘Falling in love that you seem to look at from all sides’ and ‘with turban from Lapis Lazuli’. The ‘Mona Lisa van het Noorden’ is now so appreciated that you can also get the girl in the IKEA and the Hornbach in the affordable honorary gallery. And in public space it is also a household name. The best thing is the ‘Girl with the Pearl in the parking meter’ in Amsterdam. The image rhyme of parking meter blue and the ultramarine blue turban turban: an excellent combination. Question is only how long the parking meter will remain. With the rise of app parking it is a matter of time. We still have to go to the Mauritshuis again.
Photos Jan-Dirk van der Burg