A magic moment in the gruesome history of portrait sculpture

The relationship between a great artist and his sitters is a poignant one. But what they say to each other during the long periods of concentrated stillness, on the one hand, and frenzied search for a likeness, on the other, is seldom recorded. We do not know what Leonardo said to the Mona Lisa to evoke her Giaconda Smile. Or what Vermeer, a shadowy figure at all times, told the girl with the pearl earring, to fix her mood of heart-catching, pensive beauty. One feels that Vermeer was as gentle as the touch of his brush, and spoke in barely audible whispers. He was, I think, nervous and easily upset in his work, one reason why he never painted children, though he had 14 of his own (and left them badly provided for, alas). Franz Hals liked to swear and joke, one reason his subjects often laughed, unusual in those days.