What is the title of Banksy’s 2014 Bristol mural inspired by Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring?
Answer
Girl with a Pierced Eardrum
Banksy’s 2014 Bristol mural inspired by Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring is titled Girl with a Pierced Eardrum.
The artwork substitutes a large security alarm box for the pearl earring in Vermeer’s famous portrait. Banksy painted it on a building in Bristol’s Albion Dockside area, turning an industrial feature of the wall into part of the composition.
The title is a direct visual pun on Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring. That connection is why the mural is often discussed as a modern street-art reinterpretation rather than simply an unrelated portrait.
The work also demonstrates Banksy’s recurring practice of combining existing cultural imagery with ordinary urban objects. Its subject is sometimes confused with Banksy’s other portrait-based works, but the oversized earpiece is the identifying feature.