Girl with the Red Hat

Vermeer painted Girl with the Red Hat around 1669, in Delft, where he lived and worked for his entire career. He was about 37 years old and had been painting for roughly fifteen years, producing the small, carefully composed interiors that are his signature works. Girl with the Red Hat is one of only about 34 paintings that survive from his hand, and it is the smallest of his extant works, measuring just 22 by 18 centimeters. The painting shows a young woman seated in a chair, turned to face the viewer. She wears a red hat, a blue jacket, and a white collar. Her mouth is slightly open, as if she is about to speak. The light falls from the left, illuminating her face, her hat, and the carved lion's head on the back of the chair. The background is a tapestry or a wall hanging, painted in loose, blurred strokes of blue and green. Girl with the Red Hat is the only painting Vermeer made on panel rather than on canvas. The panel was previously used for another painting, a bust-length portrait of a man wearing a wide-brimmed hat, which Vermeer painted over after turning the panel 180 degrees. The underlying portrait is visible in X-radiographs and through infrared reflectography. The choice of panel may have been practical: for a small study, a hard, smooth panel was a more appropriate support than canvas. It may also have been an aesthetic choice: the smooth surface of the panel gives the painting a sheen that resembles the image projected by a camera obscura, a device that Vermeer is known to have used. The painting is a study, not a commissioned portrait. The woman's identity is unknown, and the painting was not intended to record her likeness. Vermeer's tronies, as the Dutch called them, were studies of expression, character, and costume. They were sold on the open market, not to the sitter or their family. Girl with the Red Hat is one of two tronies that Vermeer painted of women wearing exotic hats, the other being Girl with a Pearl Earring, in the Mauritshuis in The Hague. Oil on panel, 22 by 18 centimeters. Vermeer painted with a smooth, controlled touch, building the face in thin layers of warm flesh tone. The red hat is painted in thick, opaque strokes of red lake and lead white, with the highlights applied in pure white. The blue jacket is painted in layers of natural ultramarine, the most expensive pigment in the Dutch palette. The lion's head on the chair is painted in a few quick strokes of yellow and brown, with the form suggested rather than described. The background is painted in loose, blurred strokes, which create a sense of depth without drawing the tapestry in detail. The vertical format and warm palette make this print work well in a study, bedroom, or hallway. The reds, blues, and warm flesh tones pair with white walls, natural wood, and rooms with a traditional or intimate mood. The 11x14 or 16x20 size is the best choice, as the original is small and the detail is fine. The painting has an intimate, luminous quality that suits rooms where people read or rest. The painting entered the National Gallery of Art in Washington as part of the Andrew W. Mellon Collection, the founding collection of the museum, which was gifted to the nation in 1937. This is a public domain artwork, from the National Gallery of Art, Washington. The image is released under Creative Commons Zero (CC0). We print it on archival matte paper at sizes from 8x10 to 18x24 inches, framed or unframed. The image is printed at full resolution with no cropping.