[2] Chevalier's research included reading the history of the period, studying the paintings of Vermeer and his peers, and spending several days in Delft.

In the strictly stratified society of the time, this is a fall in status because of the bad reputation that maids have for stealing, spying and sleeping with their employers.

But during the early months of her work at the Vermeers', Pieter, the son of the family butcher at the meat market, starts courting Griet.

Vermeer discovers that Griet has an eye for art and secretly asks her to run errands and perform tasks for him, such as mixing and grinding colors for his paints and acting as a substitute model.

Cornelia seizes the chance to let Catharina discover this and in the resulting scandal Vermeer remains silent and Griet is forced to leave.

Ten years later, long after Griet has married Pieter and settled into life as a mother and butcher's wife, she is called back to the house following Vermeer's death.

In addition, though the family is now poorer, Vermeer's will has included a request that Griet receive the pearl earrings that she wore when he painted her, which Van Leeuwenhoek forces Catharina to hand over.

[6] In 2005 HarperCollins brought out a UK special edition with nine colour plates of Vermeer paintings, published in celebration of one million copies sold.

[7] The New York Times described the work as a "brainy novel whose passion is ideas";[8] Atlantic Monthly praised Chevalier's effort "in creating the feel of a society with sharp divisions in status and creed”.

[10] Details were also called into question by the art historian Gary Schwarz, particularly the simplistic portrayal of the Catholic/Protestant division in a country where the differences between Protestants were equally important.

[11] As well as the high English-language sales, the novel’s popularity has seen it translated into most European languages and in Asia into Turkish, Georgian, Persian, Indonesian, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese and Korean.

[12] Rather than writing a story of Vermeer having an illicit relationship with the household maid, Chevalier builds tension in the work with the depiction of their restraint.

[17] Another theme - that is demonstrated in the narration rather than commented on overtly - is how women of that time, in Lisa Fletcher's words, "did not own their bodies, but were the possessions first of their parents, then of their employers, and finally of their husbands.

During this episode it is recalled that she had previously appeared in Woman with a Lute and that her husband had seduced the maid who sat for The Girl with the Wine Glass.

[29] Again, there is a high level of probability that Pieter van Ruijven was Vermeer's patron, since 21 of the artist’s paintings belonged to his estate, but no documentary evidence survives.

[30] Such considerations are important since, as Lisa Fletcher argues, historical novels "intervene in our view of the past" and influence our reaction to it in the present.