The Man Who Knows the ‘Girl With a Pearl Earring’ Most Intimately

What goes on in the mind of a conservator of one of the most iconic paintings in the world? Jørgen Wadum shares what he discovered while restoring Vermeer paintings.
The Man Who Knows the ‘Girl With a Pearl Earring’ Most Intimately
Prof. Dr. Jørgen Wadum, Director of Conservation at the Statens Museum for Kunst (National Gallery of Denmark) talks about his art conservation work, including the restoration of Johannes Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring," at Big Apple Studios in New York on Feb. 3, 2016. Samira Bouaou/Epoch Times
Milene Fernandez
Updated:

NEW YORK—It’s as if he had walked through a forest without making a sound, hardly leaving a trace. Through a three-month journey of examining, cleaning, and repairing every square inch—one at a time—professor Dr. Jorgen Wadum contributed to revealing the “Girl with a Pearl Earring” in all her splendor for the whole world to see. Twenty-two years after he did the most recent restoration, Wadum is still most intimately connected to that iconic painting by the 17th century Dutch painter, Johannes Vermeer.

“I’ve been up, poking my nose at her when I was in the Mauritshuis museum not too long ago, and I think she still does it brilliantly,” Wadum said a day before his lecture on perspective and painting techniques at The Frick Collection on Feb. 3.