It is more than apt to have the author of Girl with a Pearl Earring in town as part of a series of talks around the Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting exhibition (June 17 – September 17). Chevalier’s 1999 historical novel explores the fictionalised relationship between Vermeer and a servant called Griet who was played by Scarlet Johansson in the 2003 movie adaptation. Not just busy on the canvas, Vermeer fathered 15 children with his wife.
