Did you know Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring is thought to be an imaginary representation of Mary Magdalene in the Bible?

Woman Alive deputy editor, Jemimah Wright explores a fresh theory about Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring — could this enigmatic masterpiece actually depict Mary Magdalene at the moment she recognises the risen Christ?

The painting Girl with a Pearl Earring, by Johannes Vermeer, is one of those images that seems to seep into your life. Tracy Chevalier’s novel Girl with a Pearl Earring made the mysterious maid famous, the 2003 film starring Scarlett Johansson gave her face to millions.

As a teenager I had a small print of the painting in my bedroom. I would glance at her face in yellow and blue  turban with the glowing pearl, trying to find what she was thinking. So when I read the recent Times article, “How I unmasked the real Girl with a Pearl Earring,” by Andrew Graham-Dixon, claiming new archival research reveals that Vermeer did not simply paint a “tronie” or generic beauty but rather his patrons’ daughter Magdalena van Ruijven, posing as Mary Magdalene, I was intrigued.