Girl with a Pearl Earring, by Tracy Chevalier, New York, Dutton, 2000; 242 pages, $21.95 hardcover. - Review - book review

(5.) C. Willemijn rock, "Werkelijkheid of schijn: Het beeld van het Hollandse interieur in de zeventiende-eeuwse genreschilderkunst" (Reality or Appearance: The Image of the Dutch Interior in Seventeenth-Century Genre Painting), Oud Holland, vol. 112, 1998, pp. 187-246. The author sums up the evidence for the existence of marble floors in domestic interiors, concluding that they were found nearly exclusively in corridors. In the English summary she states: "All this is borne out by one quantitative source: a series of the conditions of sale pertaining to houses in the city of Haarlem over a period of sixty years. Although they concern the second half of the 18th century, a considerable number of 17th-century interior features were still preserved. No fewer than approximately 5000 different houses are described in this source: by then nearly all the larger houses had marble entrance halls and corridors, most of them dating from the 18th century; however, a total of no more than nine living rooms are mentioned as having marble or stone floors!" (p. 244).

(6.) Albert Blankert, "Vermeer's `moderne' onderwerpen," in Johannes Vermeer, exhib, cat., The Hague, Mauritshuis; Washington, D.C., the National Gallery of Art; and Zwolle, Waanders Publishers, 1995, pp. 34-35.

(7.) See, too, the chapter on Proust and Vermeer in the rich critical potpourri by Christiane Hertel, Vermeer: Reception and Interpretation, Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 103-115. Although this book, as the jacket promises, "addresses the critical problem of locating his paintings in history," the 17th-century Netherlands, unfortunately for our purposes, is not one of the historical environments that particularly interests the author.

(8.) Blankert, Johannes Vermeer, p. 33.

(9.) Quoted in French, without source, by A.B. de Vries in In het licht van Vermeer: vijf eeuwen schilderkunst, exhib. cat., The Hague, Mauritshuis, 1966, unpaginated; my translation.

(10.) Blankert, Johannes Vermeer, p. 42.

(11.) Wheelock in Johannes Vermeer, see note 6, p. 27.

Gary Schwartz is an art historian who lives in the Netherlands.

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