Top artworks and where to see them Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring (c.1665) at the Mauritshuis in The Hague

As she looks around with her slightly parted lips, you can’t help but wonder what this painting's sitter is about to say. There is an almost photorealist quality to this painting of an anonymous girl with a pearl earring – immortalised by Scarlett Johannson in the 2003 film. Vermeer, the Dutch Golden Age painter, died impoverished – he only painted two or three paintings a year because he worked so slowly, and the world forgot about his work until it was rediscovered in the 19th century.