[2] It is owned by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. along with three paintings attributed to Vermeer: Woman Holding a Balance, A Lady Writing a Letter, and Girl with a Red Hat.

The painting is a close-up portrait of a girl, facing front, wearing a widely conical striped hat and a blue-green fur-trimmed jacket, holding a double recorder.

Girl with a Flute may have been first owned by the family of Vermeer's patron Pieter van Ruijven, and it was possibly sold at the 1696 Dissius auction in Amsterdam, probably catalogue number 39 or 40.

[8][6] Subsequent heir Mahie van Boxtel en Liempde married Belgian art collector Jean de Grez (1837–1910).

[11][2][12] There had been suspicions in the past that Vermeer may have begun the piece but another artist finished the work; however the National Gallery of Art's team of curators, art historians, conservators, research conservators, research scientists, and imaging scientists concluded, based on the "fatal flaws" in execution they discovered in every layer and every stage of the painting, that Vermeer had no involvement in painting any of it.

The National Gallery of Art concluded that The mystery artist who painted Girl with a Flute was familiar with Vermeer’s unique methods and materials, but unable to achieve his level of expertise.

[12][15] The National Gallery of Art's 2022 report noted that "While it is conceivable that Maria received instruction from her father and produced paintings in his manner while still in her late teens, prior to her marriage in 1674, the absence of proof to the contrary does not constitute support for Binstock's provocative suggestion.

In December 1995 he wrote to The Times: "The many dramatic changes evident in paintings cleaned for the Vermeer exhibition at the National Gallery in Washington constitute yet another art restoration debacle.

In 2001, presenting photographs of the painting from 1941, 1958, 1994, and 1995, Daley wrote: In the first [restoration] ... a great loss of material and shading occurred; an eyebrow disappeared; and the necklace was substantially thinned.

The news of [the 2012 botched 'restoration' of the Ecce Homo fresco of Christ in Borja, Spain] surfaced hundreds of reports of failed restorations such as ... Vermeer's Girl with a Flute.

"[20] In January 2023, Daley wrote to The Guardian stating: If Girl With a Flute at Washington's National Gallery of Art ever was a Vermeer, successive picture restorers have made sure that it no longer is so.

In the second, ahead of the previous travelling Vermeer blockbuster exhibitions of 1995-96, published photographs showed that all the features were further weakened and the necklace had lost its central section.