Girl with the Red Hat

In the pictureA girl sitting sideways on a chair turns her head to look at us. She wears a wide-brimmed red hat with a fluffy texture, and its shadow covers the upper part of her face, so the light reaches only her nose, cheek, and slightly parted lips. She is wrapped in a blue garment that shimmers in the light, and a white lace collar shows at her neck. A small earring gleams at her ear. In both lower corners of the picture are chair finials carved with lion heads, and behind her a tapestry with green and ocher patterns fills the wall.

BackgroundVermeer painted it in the late 1660s, and at less than 23 centimeters high it is one of his smallest paintings. Unusually for an artist who mainly used canvas, he painted it on a wooden panel. X-ray examination is said to have shown that a portrait of a man, upside down, was painted first beneath this picture. Who the girl is, and whether this is a commissioned portrait or a figure study, is unknown. The color arrangement, with broad areas of two colors, the red hat and the blue garment, linked by the white collar, is considered a hallmark of this painting. It entered the National Gallery of Art in Washington in 1937 with Andrew Mellon's collection.

Puzzle tipThe masses of color are large and distinct, so it is relatively easy to assemble. First separate the red hat at the top, the blue garment at lower left, and the face and white collar in the middle. The red of the hat turns to a bright orange toward the right end, so use that change to tell left from right. The background tapestry is green at upper left and ocher and brown on the right, so fill it in as two parts, and finish the border with the lion-head finials in the two lower corners. 48 pieces suits it.