After two years on a blockbuster world tour, the ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ returned home to the much-loved Mauritshuis gallery in The Hague, which has just completed extensive renovations. With huge queues lining up for a glimpse of her enigmatic beauty and nearly 1.2 million visitors at its stop in Japan, the enduring appeal of this masterpiece is indisputable. The beautifully filmed documentary goes in pursuit of the many unresolved riddles surrounding the extraordinary painting and its mysterious creator Vermeer. Who was this girl? Why and how was it painted? Why is it so revered?

"The call came out of the blue. We are often contacted by galleries and museums offering us access to their forthcoming shows but this was a little different. The Mauritshuis in the Hague (in the Netherlands) was re-opening after two years of closure and renovation. Would we be interested in a film about this?
Now, I’ll admit the Mauritshuis may not be the best known gallery in the world but is an absolute treasure trove of masterpieces – not least works by Rembrandt and Vermeer. So my colleague David Bickerstaff and I flew out to see if there was a story there that you, our international audience, would be interested in. The gallery director Emilie Gordenker took us around and it didn’t take long to realise that, first of all, we just had to make a film about it and, secondly, the story was staring us in the face. The Mauritshuis own one of the most well-known (and most copied) paintings in the world: Girl with a Pearl Earring – a piece as engimatic as it is iconic. By using the other masterpieces that the Mauritshuis owns we embarked on a detective journey to reveal more about this painting than has even been brought to the big screen before. I hope you find the film as magical as we found the journey making it." Phil Grabsky, Director

[Not Available in Italy, Spain & Poland]