<P> On the advice of Victor de Stuers, who for years tried to prevent Vermeer's rare works from being sold to parties abroad, Arnoldus Andries des Tombe purchased the work at an auction in The Hague in 1881, for only two guilders with a thirty cents buyer's premium (around € 24 at current purchasing power). At the time, it was in poor condition . Des Tombe had no heirs and donated this and other paintings to the Mauritshuis in 1902 . </P> <P> In 2012, as part of a traveling exhibition while the Mauritshuis was being renovated and expanded, the painting was exhibited in Japan at the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, and in 2013--2014 the United States, where it was shown at the High Museum in Atlanta, the de Young Museum in San Francisco and in New York City at the Frick Collection . Later in 2014 it was exhibited in Bologna, Italy . In June 2014, it returned to the Mauritshuis museum which stated that the painting will not leave the museum in the future . </P> <P> The painting was investigated by the scientists of the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage and FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics (AMOLF) Amsterdam . </P> <P> The ground is dense and yellowish in color and is composed of chalk, lead white, ochre and very little black . The dark background of the painting contains bone black, weld (luteolin, reseda luteola), chalk, small amounts of red ochre, and indigo . The face and draperies were painted mainly using ochres, natural ultramarine, bone black, charcoal black and lead white . </P>

Where was girl with a pearl earring painted