"My name is Volkje.
If the spelling is unfamiliar to you it is because it has been spelled many ways. Coming from the island of Nordstrand in the Wadden Sea, the language we spoke was a combination of Dutch, Frisian, Danish and German. I am Frisian, my parents told me. For most of my life, I could neither read nor write. If asked to sign my name I did so with an X."
I was well-named by my mother and father, who called me their little falcon, the wandering one who searches the coastline with keen eyes looking for the eggs of seagulls and terns. My sister Annetje prefers to stay at home and tend the geese.
It is the falcon for whom I am named, to be more precise, the little falcon.
The autobiography of Volkje Van Husum
What she looked like
She was little she was pert, and had soft grey eyes the color of the winter sky. In the mornings in the mudflats along the banks of the Wadden Sea, she could be found gathering eggs from the nests of the waders, geese, ducks and gulls that nest in the marshes. From time to time, she would stop to watch the grey seals swimming in the dark blue-green water or resting on the sand, but more often she could be seen gazing into the grey sky watching the falcon soaring overhead and plummeting to earth in pursuit of their prey.
The painting
The painting is signed "IVMeer" but not dated. It is estimated to have been painted around 1665.
That is all wrong, if one is to suppose that Volkje was the subject of the painting, The Girl with the Pearl Earing by Johannes Vermeer. First, Volkje spent time in Amsterdam, living on Tuinstraat, close to the home and studio of the great painter Rembrandt von Rijn. Vermeer, the painter, lived out his life in the Dutch city of Delft. Lastly, we can guess that Volkje was born in the year 1615, or thereabouts, making her too old for the young girl in the painting.
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| The girl with the pearl earing, by Johannes Vermeer |