Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring has just had a massive glow-up, virtually.
In 2021, the team at Hirox Europe produced a 10-gigapixel digital scan of 17th-century artist Johannes Vermeer’s iconic 1665 painting, Girl with a Pearl Earring, allowing viewers to zoom in to an astonishing level of detail.
That’s 10 billion pixels, by the way. If you’re not up on your gigas and megas, here’s some context: my Sony A7CR camera has a 61-megapixel sensor, which is really damn big in the world of cameras you can buy instead of a small used car. So, you could create a grid of 164 full-size photos from my camera across a full-size print of that 10-gigapixel image.
Now there’s this: Thanks to another new collaboration between the Mauritshuis museum and Hirox Europe, Girl with a Pearl Earring is now available to explore in a staggering 108-gigapixel scan.
At that resolution, each pixel is capturing just 1.3 microns of detail, or 1.3/1000th of a millimetre — smaller than a speck of dust.
This ultra-high-resolution image lets you zoom in closer than even the most generous museum guard could allow (so put the magnifying glass away), revealing the tiniest brushstrokes, the delicate texture of the canvas, and even the subtle topography of the paint.
The interactive platform also offers 3D views of key areas, like the shimmer of the pearl and the folds of the headscarf, showcasing Vermeer’s masterful play with light and texture.
Whether you’re into 17th-century art or just curious to see what 108 billion pixels can reveal, this scan lets you get closer to Girl with a Pearl Earring than ever — no velvet rope in sight.
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