Unique print assignment “Who’s that girl?”

The world-renowned Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague once again called upon Canon Production Printing to collaborate on a unique project. They wanted to dive into history and research what the famous ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ painting looked like in 1665 when Johannes Vermeer created this masterpiece. Led by Mauritshuis restorer Abbie Vandivere and together with Technical University Delft and scanning expert Hirox Europe, Canon took on this challenge to find out ‘Who’s that girl?’.

When Johannes Vermeer first created the painting 358 years ago, the colors looked fresher than they do today. The years seemed to have aged the Girl a bit. Today, the painting has crackled due to natural temperature and air humidity changes, but she still looks beautiful.

To find out what the painting looked like when it was first created, the team of Hirox made a microscopic 3D scan of the painting, and the researchers of the University created a digital visualization to show the changes over time. Canon proceeded to print a 100-time enlargement of the famous painting as it is today to enable the audience to see and feel the painting in detail.

To create this unique enlargement, the largest elevated print of this kind in the world, we used our patented Elevated Printing Technology. This technology, which is also used in our PRISMAelevate XL software, enabled us to print the unique enlargement on our Arizona flatbed printer, using UV ink to build layer-on-layer.

The result is on display in the foyer of the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague, freely accessible for all visitors to enjoy until September 2024.

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