A face so enigmatic it earned the name
The Dutch Mona Lisa.
Johannes Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring"
has been in the collection of the Mauritshuis 
in The Hague since 1902.
It's the star attraction of the museum that
draws thousands of visitors each year.
But now art experts are hoping to find out
more about the 17th century painting
thanks to cutting edge technology.
And they're doing this within an exhibition called 
"The Girl in the Spotlight".
This is an XRF scanner that stands for 
X-Ray Fluorescent Spectrometry.
It's a technique that makes use of a thin beam of X-Rays
scanned across the surface of the painting
and through the interaction of matter and X-Ray
it informs us about the distribution of pigments
below and underneath the surface of the painting
and elements of course correspond to pigments 
that Vermeer used in the creation of this painting.
The experts describe the process as a way
of looking over the shoulders of Vermeer,
watching him paint and see him make choices.
You always learn a lot when you see 
a painting in a different perspective.
This painting has travelled the world.
She was in Japan, the US, Italy, and in 
every space she's in she looks different
and now she looks very vulnerable without her frame.
She looks a little smaller.
It has a different character and 
you always learn something from that.
The more different angles you can take, 
whether it's research or just display,
the more you learn about your collection.
The scanning and examination process 
 will take two weeks
and visitors can drop by to 
watch the researchers in action
before they finish on March the 11th.
