Jan Vermeer painted “Girl with a Pearl Earring” with his trademark realism, skillfully applied color, and sparkling highlights. Little is known about the painting, sometimes called “the Dutch Mona Lisa,” or the painter Vermeer (1632 – 1675), who created very expressive interior scenes of everyday life. Despite the fact that Vermeer is known to have painted only 35 paintings, he is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the Dutch Golden Age.