'Girl with a Pearl Earring' Is Coming to New York

"Girl with a Pearl Earring," Johannes Vermeer's so-called Mona Lisa of the North, is coming to New York.

"Girl with a Pearl Earring," Johannes Vermeer's Mona Lisa of the North, is coming to New York. As part of the painting's world tour, the work will be shown by The Frick Collection from October 22 to January 19, along with 15 other Dutch masterpieces, according to the Associated Press.

The painting, usually housed in the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis in The Hague, will be the centerpiece of “Vermeer, Rembrandt and Hals: Masterpieces of Dutch Paintings From the Mauritshuis." "Girl" last appeared in New York in 1984 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Over one million people saw the painting when it recently showed in Japan. Some would argue that it's surge in popularity was helped by Tracy Chevalier's 1999 historical novel, and the Scarlett Johannson-starring film that followed it, but as an art curator told The Wall Street Journal, the painting's appeal might be all the questions it leaves unanswered. "Who was she? What was she thinking? What was her relationship with Vermeer?" said Melissa Buron, assistant curator of the exhibition at the de Young museum, where the painting was shown earlier this year. "The mystery is part of its popularity."