Discover the Pearl in 3D, with Never-Before-Seen Microscopic Detail!

Johannes Vermeer’s masterpiece *Girl with a Pearl Earring* is usually observed from a distance. Only a handful of people in the world have had the chance to be so close to it that you can almost touch it. It looks quite flat at first, but is it really? It seems to have only a few colors: yellow, blue, red and white; but how do individual pigments look? The painting is already 356 years old. Are there any cracks, imperfections, retouches made to it? The *Girl with a Pearl Earring* was examined before the public at the Mauritshuis using state-of-the-art imaging techniques, as part of the research project *The Girl in the Spotlight*. Vermeer’s painting techniques are revealed using XYZ stitched microphotographs made with the Hirox high-resolution 3D digital microscope at 4 & 1 μm/pixel. Discover the micro panorama of the full painting with a resolution so high you can print it the size of a building, and true color 3D modeling that gives you the feeling of holding the painting in your hands!

Credits

Gigapixel captured by Emilien Leonhardt & Vincent Sabatier from HIROX EUROPE / JYFEL CORPORATION, under the supervision of Abbie Vandivere from the Mauritshuis during the Girl in the Spotlight project.