What is the nickname often given to 'Girl with a Pearl Earring'?

The nickname often given to Girl with a Pearl Earring is the “Mona Lisa of the North.”

The comparison reflects the painting’s extraordinary fame, its enigmatic sitter, and her direct yet unreadable expression. Like Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Vermeer’s girl is unidentified, turned partly toward the viewer, and surrounded by questions about who she was and what her expression means. The nickname is a modern popular comparison, not the painting’s historical title.

Vermeer’s work was painted around 1665 and is a tronie rather than a documented portrait. It became especially famous internationally through exhibitions, reproductions, Tracy Chevalier’s 1999 historical novel, and the 2003 film adaptation. Those later works helped turn the image into one of the world’s best-known paintings.

The wording can vary in translations and popular writing: “Mona Lisa of the North” is the established English nickname, while phrases such as “Dutch Mona Lisa” or “Northern Mona Lisa” may appear as informal variants. The canonical quiz answer is the longer form.