Girl with a Flute

Studio of Johannes Vermeer

Oil on panel

National Gallery of Art

This small oil on panel depicts a young woman gazing directly at the viewer from beneath a wide-brimmed hat that casts a deep shadow across her face. She rests her left arm on a ledge, loosely holding a recorder (often described as a flute), and wears a fur-trimmed jacket known as a jak or manteltje, a garment common in Dutch domestic genre painting of the 1650s–1670s. The work belongs to the Dutch pictorial tradition of the tronie—an informal study of a figure type rather than a formal portrait—and closely parallels Vermeer's Girl with the Red Hat in format, setting, and palette. Originally attributed to Johannes Vermeer of Delft, scientific investigation conducted by the National Gallery of Art in 2020–2021 concluded that the painting was most likely executed by an unidentified student or close associate working within Vermeer's studio, someone familiar with his materials and techniques but unable to fully replicate his mastery.