Last Monday over dinner we talked about paintings and E asked our 5yo Y what her favourite painting was. “Oh that’s easy,” came the immediate reply “the girl with the pearl.” We had a bit of a ‘Georges Braque moment‘ as we didn’t have a clue where she would have learned about that painting. Turns out she’d been watching Pim and Pom, two 1950’s cartoon cats by Fiep Westendorp, now featuring in an animation school series where they visit musea and discuss famous Dutch paintings, as well as end up inside the paintings. In December they had an episode about the Girl with the Pearl Earring.

Last Thursday the musea reopened after the pandemic induced lockdown, and E arranged tickets for today. We visited the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague where this Vermeer painting is on permanent display. Y really only had eyes for the one painting. We’ll probably have to return once other episodes of the two cats discussing paintings get around to other works of Vermeer, Rembrandt, or other Dutch 17th century masters.

Arriving at the Mauritshuis museum

Mission accomplished