What a fate it is to be hung next to the most famous painting in a gallery. To be overlooked, a framing device, just out of shot of every selfie taken in front of ‘The Ambassadors’ or ‘Mona Lisa’.
The painting immediately to the left of Johannes Vermeer’s ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ in the Mauritshuis is Gerard ter Borch’s ‘Combing for Lice’. The weary mother in this close interior has none of the pouty lusciousness of Vermeer’s pin-up, but no Madonna ever cradled her bambino with as much maternal tenderness as this Dutch huisvrouw inspects her son’s blond head.
Thanks to Tracy Chevalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring and Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, all most visitors want from the Mauritshuis is Vermeer and Carel Fabritius. His ‘Goldfinch’ is a funny little thing, with a beak like a Toblerone triangle and dusty plumage.
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