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"I fell asleep reading a dull book and dreamed I kept on reading, so I awoke from sheer boredom."
- Heinrich Heine
(1797 - 1856)
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ZIN Product Number: 10165852
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| | | |  | | | Product Details
 Format: Hardcover, 233 pages
Publisher: Econo-Clad Books
ISBN: 0613338111
Release Date: Jan 3, 2003
Average Reader Review:   (Based on 4 reviews.)
| |  | | | In Brief
In mid-career, the renowned 17th-century artist Johannes Vermeer painted "Girl with a Pearl Earring," which has been called the Dutch Mona Lisa. Girl with a Pearl Earring tells the story behind the advent of this famous painting, all the while depicting life in 17th-century Delft, a small Dutch city with a burgeoning art community.
The novel centers on Griet, the Protestant daughter of a Delft tile painter who lost his sight in a kiln accident. In order to bring income to her struggling family, Griet must work as a maid for a more financially sound family. When Johannes Vermeer and his wife approve of Griet as a maid for their growing Catholic household, she leaves home and quickly enters adult life. The Vermeer household, with its five children, grandmother and long-time servant, is ready to make Griet's working life difficult. Though her help is sorely needed, her beauty and innocence are both coveted and resented. Vermeer's wife Catharina, long banished from her husband's studio for her clumsiness and lack of genuine interest in art, is immediately wary of Griet, a visually talented girl who exhibits signs of artistic promise. Taneke, the faithful servant to the grandmother, proves her protective loyalty by keeping a close eye on Griet's every move.
The artist himself, however, holds another view entirely of the young maid. Recognizing Griet's talents, Vermeer takes her on as his studio assistant and teaches her to grind paints and develop color palettes in the remote attic. Though reluctant to overstep her boundaries in the cagey Vermeer household, Griet is overjoyed both to work with her intriguing master and to lend some breath to her natural inclinations-colors and composition-neither of which she had ever been able to develop. Together, Vermeer and Griet conceal the apprenticeship from the family until Vermeer's most prominent patron demands that the lovely maid be the subject of his next commissioned work. Vermeer must paint Griet-an awkward, charged situation for them both.
Chevalier's account of the artistic process-from the grinding of paints to the inclusion and removal of background objects-lay at the core of the novel. Her inventive portrayal of this tumultuous time, when Protestantism began to dominate Catholicism and the growing bourgeoisie took the place of the Church as patrons of the arts, draws the reader into a lively, if little known, time and place in history.
| | | | From The Publisher
A beguiling story about artistic vision and sensual depth that eerily and eloquently re-creates the feeling of the famous painting that inspired it
In seventeenth-century Delft, there's a strict social order-rich and poor, Catholic and Protestant, master and servant-and all know their place. When Griet becomes a maid in the household of the painter Johannes Vermeer, she thinks she knows her role: housework, laundry, and the care of his six children. She even feels able to handle his shrewd mother-in-law; his restless, sensual wife; and their jealous servant. What no one expects is that Griet's quiet manner, quick perceptions, and fascination with her master's paintings will draw her inexorably into his world. Their growing intimacy sparks whispers; and when Vermeer paints her wearing his wife's pearl earrings, the gossip escalates into a full-blown scandal that irrevocably changes Griet's life.
Written with the precision and focus of an Old Master painting, Girl With a Pearl Earring is a vivid portrait of colorful seventeenth-century Delft, as well as the hauntingly poignant story of one young girl's rite of passage.
"Beautifully written, mysterious, and almost unbearably poignant . . . I read it with a book of Vermeer's paintings beside me and it was a magical experience to glance from one to the other."-Deborah Moggach, author of Tulip Fever
Raised in Washington, D.C., Tracy Chevalier moved to England in 1984, and in 1994 graduated from the M.A. course in creative writing at the University of East Anglia. Her first novel, The Virgin Blue, was chosen by W. H. Smith for its Fresh Talent promotion in 1997. She lives in London with her husband and son.
| | | | Annotation
Winner of Barnes & Noble's 2000 Discover Great New Writers Award
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 | | | | | Number of Reviews: 4 Average Rating:
Disappointed Reader
-- Brenda, a book WORM., September 10, 2002
Also Recommended: My #1 favorite book of the summer was not on a 'Best Seller List'. "The Wedding Dress" was a SWEET read !
Review of Girl with a Pearl Earring
-- Delilah, August 9, 2002
The Dutch School
-- Jon Johnson, August 9, 2002
Amazing!
-- Sam, a student and dancer, July 31, 2002
Also Recommended: Summer Sisters (judy blume)
| |  | | | Accreditation
Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Tracy Chevalier moved to London in 1984 after earning her bachelor's degree in English from Oberlin College in Ohio. Intending to return after six months, she lives there still.
Chevalier worked for several years as a literary editor for a reference book publisher, editing encyclopedias about writers and literature. In 1994, she graduated with a master's degree in creative writing from the University of East Anglia in Norwich. Her first novel, chosen by W. H. Smith for its prestigious Fresh Talent promotion, was published in the U.K. in 1997. Set in France and Switzerland, The Virgin Blue explores the persecution of French Huguenots in the 16th-century through the lens of a contemporary American woman, who unravels the puzzling secrets of her own ancestry. The Virgin Blue will have its first American publication in a Plume edition to be published in 2002.
Chevalier lives with her husband and son and is at work on a third novel, set in London at the dawn of the 20th-century. To date, she has stood face-to-face with 28 of Johannes Vermeer's 35 known paintings. One of her primary goals in life is to see them all in person.
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| | | | | | Keywords
Fiction, Fiction - Historical, Historical - General, Literary, Vermeer, Johannes,, Fiction, Fiction - Historical, Historical - General, Literary
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