You’ve heard of Johannes Vermeer’s ca. 1665 painting Girl with a Pearl Earring, long housed at the Mauritshuis in the Hague and soon to visit Japan this summer. Now, prepare for the latest art history–inspired sensation. Call it Miffy with a Pearl Earring.
Unfortunately for him, Vermeer died in 1675, well before Miffy came into being, but the Dutch Old Master has lent his mark to these plush toys, with his Girl with a Pearl Earring now spawning one adorned with a glowing bauble, a turban, and a brown dress à la the outfit worn by the young woman in that famed painting. This week, the Vermeer-influenced rabbit toy went viral on X, where users can’t stop expressing their admiration for it.
This Miffy got so popular because of a press conference held by the Nakanoshima Museum of Art in Osaka, which will receive Girl with a Pearl Earring in August while its gallery in the Mauritshuis is being renovated. A giant version of the toy appeared at the conference alongside museum officials, earning praise from individuals such as the journalist Heidi N. Moore, who wrote, “this is adorable.” Her post has gained 282,000 likes.
Miffy is being treated as the official ambassador for the presentation of Girl with a Pearl Earring, which hasn’t traveled beyond the Netherlands in more than a decade. It’s one of Vermeer’s most famous works, and it rarely goes abroad. It memorably appeared in a 2023 Vermeer retrospective at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam that attracted hordes of visitors.
According to some Dutch officials, this could be the last time Girl with a Pearl Earring will travel, not just to Japan but to anywhere at all. “Maybe this is her last tour, since she is ‘advancing in age’ like all of us,” said Gilles Beschoor Plug, the Dutch ambassador to Japan, in a statement posted to X.
Miffy’s appearance at Thursday’s press conference in Tokyo was a clever bit of PR, given that Miffy is, in fact, of Dutch origin, despite the persistent misperception that she was invented in Japan, where she is particularly popular. (Her inventor is the late Dick Bruna, who denounced the similar-looking Hello Kitty character by Sanrio during his lifetime.) Yet the decision to have Miffy present and featured so prominently marked an attempt to suggest harmony between the two nations.
Not everyone was so pleased with Miffy with a Pearl Earring’s big moment at Thursday’s press conference in Tokyo. One X user noted that this Miffy probably needed some edits, including one to account for that the earring in the Vermeer painting appears on the girl’s lobe, whereas Miffy wears it on the side of her face, for some reason. “Lower the ear and put the earring on,” that user wrote, in a post that has now gained 16,000 likes.
Want your own version of Miffy with a Pearl Earring? You can buy a knit doll of her for $48 a pop. The Rijksmuseum also sells dolls of her posed as other notable Dutch Old Master paintings, including Vermeer’s Milkmaid.
