Johannes Vermeer
Girl with a Red Hat
c. 1665/1666
Johannes Vermeer's 'Girl with the Red Hat' (c. 1665–1666) is a 23 × 18 cm tronie — a 'character head' — the smallest of all the artist's surviving paintings. The sitter is caught in a split-second pose as if glimpsed through a camera obscura, her brilliant vermilion plumed hat framing a softly dissolving face, with the finials of a lion-head chair behind. The panel is one of only a handful of Vermeers in North America, held at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
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Image source: Wikimedia Commons