The identity of the woman in the painting has never surfaced. She’s wearing an exotic turban—pearl grey and golden yellow—with a jacket to match. Enigmatic. Intimate. That's the girl with a pearl earring.
The Breezer - A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me exploring historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week.14th December 2025.
Happy Sunday Reader! For years I moved through the family home completely oblivious to the pictures Dad had hung on the walls. Over time he’d picked up prints of some famous masters, though it would take me forty years to work it out.
During a visit to the National Gallery in London last year, I was excited to see Edgar Degas’ ‘Scène de plage’. The thrill was less about appreciating the brushwork and more about finally recognising the painting that for years had hung in the lounge above where I parked myself on the sofa every day, oblivious.
The penny had dropped.
Edgar Degas’ Scène de plage, National Gallery, London, c.1869-70.
Degas wasn’t alone. One of Vincent van Gogh’s forty-odd self-portraits gazed out from the dining room wall, observing my daily routines with what I can only assume was profound disappointment. A Monet—who knows which one, he produced at least 2,000—presided over Dad’s study.
Dad never mentioned his guilty pleasure, perhaps because he’d realised his son wasn’t exactly bursting with cultural curiosity. I was all sport in those days.
But one print in particular comes to mind. I must have walked past it thousands of times. Every day, coming out of my bedroom and down the hallway, she was there, looking down at me. A woman.
I never once asked who she was.
Johannes Vermeer was born in Delft, a prosperous Dutch town, in 1632. The Netherlands was in the middle of its Golden Age—a period of considerable wealth and artistic output that had turned a collection of rebellious provinces into one of Europe’s more successful economies.
Surprisingly little is known about Vermeer’s childhood—the records fall silent after his baptism in 1632 and don’t pick up again until he married in 1653. It's a shame, because his family background suggests there was rarely a dull moment.
For starters, his grandfather was a convicted counterfeiter while grandma ran illegal lotteries. Johannes’ father also harboured the creative enterprise gene. He was a silk weaver who had diversified into the intriguing combination of art dealing and innkeeping.
Fortunately for posterity, Johannes chose painting over the family’s more colorful pursuits.
The Procuress by Johannes Vermeer, 1656. The man on the left is thought to be Vermeer's only self-portrait.
At the age of twenty-one, Vermeer married Catharina Bolnes. She was Catholic, he was Protestant. Johannes converted to Catholicism. As if to prove his commitment to his new faith, the couple then proceeded to have fifteen children, though four died in infancy.
We don’t know who taught Vermeer to paint, or where. It’s quite possible that he taught himself, picking up techniques from the paintings he observed passing through his father’s dealership.
By 1653, Johannes had been accepted into the Delft Guild of Saint Luke as a master painter. He was also elected head of the guild several times. Despite this recognition from his peers, commercial success proved more elusive. There was a problem.
Vermeer painted slowly. Painfully slowly.
Throughout his career, he produced perhaps 35 paintings. Compare this to his contemporary, Rembrandt, who produced around 600 works, or to Jan Steen’s 800 paintings. And don’t forget Monet’s 2,000 mentioned earlier.
But Vermeer wasn’t lazy—he was meticulous. His technique involved grinding expensive pigments, layering translucent glazes and capturing light with an almost scientific precision. Some art historians believe this precision must have benefited from the use of a camera obscura.
Out of Curiosity
A camera obscura is an optical device that projects an image onto a surface. Typically, it is a darkened space, either a room or a box, with a small hole or lens in one side which projects light onto the opposite surface.
An inverted image of the outside scene is then produced to allow artists or draughtsmen to trace outlines with great accuracy. In addition, for an artist, it provided a tool to help judge relative light and dark and the overall ‘colour temperature’ in selected areas.
Engraving showing the principle of the camera obscura.
My personal experience of a camera obscura was at the Clifton Observatory in Bristol, overlooking the Clifton Suspension Bridge. At the top of the tower, a rotating lens, hood and mirror combine to project views across Avon Gorge onto a circular, concave surface in front of you.
In other words, by looking down at the projection, you can see a full panorama of the total area outside. You can see people walking and kids on bicycles while cars and buses crawl their way across the image. The effect is oddly captivating.
Vermeer didn't paint grand historical or religious scenes. He excelled at painting snapshot moments of Dutch domestic life: a woman reading a letter, a maid pouring milk, a music lesson in progress. You are the unseen observer peeking through the window.
His ability to capture light set Vermeer apart in his era; light streaming through windows, reflections from objects of all kinds, seamless gradation from light to shadow.
It was all about the light.
In 1665, Vermeer painted what would become that mysterious print on my childhood hallway wall. ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ has since become his most famous work, dubbed the ‘Mona Lisa of the North’.
The young lady looks over her shoulder and catches your gaze. She’s wearing an exotic turban—pearl grey and golden yellow—with a jacket to match. Behind her, nothing but darkness.
Her lips are just parted, as if she’s about to speak. But your eye keeps returning to that pearl hanging from her left ear, catching the light.
It turns out I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know who she was. The identity of the woman in the painting has never surfaced.
Enigmatic. Intimate. That's the girl with a pearl earring.
Girl with a Pearl Earring, c.1665; Johannes Vermeer, Mauritshuis, The Hague, Netherlands.
Vermeer always struggled financially. His slow output, use of expensive materials and limited contacts in Delft meant that earning a living was always going to be difficult.
Then disaster struck.
In 1672, the ‘Year of Disaster’, France, England and others invaded the Netherlands. The Dutch economy collapsed. The art market evaporated overnight. Vermeer, who had relied on a small number of local, wealthy patrons, found himself in financial ruin.
The stress proved too much. Vermeer died suddenly 350 years ago tomorrow, 15 December 1675, just forty-three years old. His wife later testified that the financial catastrophe had driven him into ‘such decay and decadence’ that he had fallen into ’a frenzy’.
Catharina was left with eleven surviving children and crushing debts.
Today, Girl with a Pearl Earring is valued at over $200 million, while Vermeer’s complete surviving works represent some of the most treasured masterpieces in existence.
All those prints on Dad’s walls, all those stories behind them. They were always there. I just wasn’t paying attention.
Dates with History
Tuesday…
Wu Zetian was born in 624 CE in Shanxi Province, during China’s Tang Dynasty. Her father, a successful timber merchant, ensured she received an unusually comprehensive education for a woman of her era.
At fourteen, Wu entered the imperial palace as a low-ranking concubine to Emperor Taizong. When he died in 649, palace protocol demanded she retire to a Buddhist convent. She did, but not for long.
Instead, Wu caught the eye of Taizong’s son, the new Emperor Gaozong, and returned to court as his concubine. Within a few years, she’d outmanoeuvred Gaozong’s childless empress and taken her place.
The climb had only just begun.
When Gaozong suffered a stroke in 660, Wu ruled China from behind the scenes. After his death in 683, she ruled through her sons as regent. But regency wasn’t enough.
In 690, Wu did something unprecedented. She declared herself Emperor—not Empress, but Emperor—founding her own Zhou Dynasty. For fifteen years, she was China’s sole female emperor in over 3,000 years of imperial history.
A formidable woman.
In the winter of 704, aged 80, Wu became seriously ill. When she restricted visits solely to her young lovers—I did say she was formidable—court officials became concerned that they would seize control. The lovers were executed and Wu was forced to yield power to her son, Zhongzong.
Wu died ten months later, 1,320 years ago this Tuesday, 16 December 705.
The Tang Dynasty Wu Zetian had interrupted lasted another two centuries. Every single one of those emperors was her descendant. Although she had been marginalised in the dynasty’s official record, her legacy lived on through her bloodline.
The formidable Emperor Wu Zetian: Image taken from an 18th century album of portraits of 86 emperors of China.
Friday…
In 1870, the USS Saginaw—a paddle-wheel gunboat—was based at Midway Atoll, 1,200 miles northwest of Hawaii. Her role was to survey the remote Pacific landmass to assess its suitability as a safe harbour for shipping.
On her way back to San Francisco, Saginaw set course for Kure Atoll, searching for castaways from wrecked whaling ships. Instead, on 29 October 1870, she struck a reef at Kure and her hull was torn open. All ninety-three crew members survived, but their situation was desperate.
Limited vegetation, even less fresh water and, crucially, no passing ships. The atoll sat in the middle of nowhere.
After three weeks of dwindling supplies, action was needed.
Coxswain William Halford, Lieutenant John Talbot and three others would attempt to navigate 1,200 miles of open ocean in Saginaw’s twenty-two-foot cutter to reach Hawaii. It was one act short of suicide.
For thirty-one days, the men battled the Pacific, nibbled on biscuits and sipped on tightly rationed water. They fought storms and scorching sun. Navigation was by dead reckoning and prayer.
One hundred and fifty-five years ago tomorrow, 19 December 1870*, the coast of the Hawaiian island of Kauai finally appeared. They had made it.
Then came the cruellest twist.
As they approached the beach at Hanalei Bay, massive breakers caught the small boat and capsized it in the surf. In those final chaotic moments—within yards of salvation—four men drowned.
Only William Halford survived, thrown onto the beach by the waves.
Islanders found him and rushed word to Honolulu. A rescue ship was immediately dispatched, arriving just in time to save the stranded crew of the Saginaw.
In 1872, Halford and his four companions were awarded the Medal of Honor, the first ever awarded in peacetime.
The USS Saginaw, c.1860.
*some sources put this date at 3 January 1871.
1,000 years ago…
History has always had a fondness for epithets—those memorable descriptors tacked onto names that tell you everything you need to know about a person in just a few words. They’re the ultimate historical branding exercise.
Think of Ivan the Terrible. Alexander the Great. Catherine the Great. Richard the Lionheart. Eric Bloodaxe. These weren’t official titles bestowed at coronation ceremonies. They were earned; sometimes through greatness, sometimes through unspeakable acts, and sometimes through sheer longevity.
But few epithets pack quite the punch of Basil the Bulgar Slayer. This wasn’t metaphorical. This wasn’t hyperbole. This was a job description.
Basil was born in 958 in Constantinople. This glittering capital of the Byzantine Empire was what remained of the old Roman Empire. It was the eastern half that had survived when the west collapsed five centuries earlier. The Byzantines still called themselves Romans and considered themselves the rightful heirs to imperial glory.
Into this world came Basil. His father, Emperor Romanos II, died when he was five. His mother, Theophano, promptly married one of her late husband’s generals, then conspired with another, John Tzimiskes, to murder the first in his bed in 969. As soon as John became emperor, he banished Theophano to a monastery.
Live by the conspiring general, die by the conspiring general, I guess.
Young Basil watched it all. When John died in 976, the seventeen-year-old inherited his throne. Basil's challenge was to keep it.
In the 980s, Bulgaria’s Tsar Samuel had been raiding Byzantine territory. In response, in 986, young Basil marched to besiege the Bulgarian capital. His army was annihilated.
The humiliation burned for twenty-eight years. Some men would have let it go. Basil wasn’t one of them.
He pursued relentless attrition, campaigning winter and summer. Year after year, he reclaimed territory. In 1014, the breakthrough: Basil’s army defeated the Bulgarian army. Thousands of prisoners fell into Byzantine hands.
What happened next would echo through the centuries. Basil divided the captives into groups of one hundred. Ninety-nine were completely blinded. The hundredth kept one eye to guide the others home.
Now that’s how you earn an epithet: Boulgaroktonos. The Bulgar Slayer.
Basil the Bulgar Slayer, from a Byzantine psalter (prayer book of the psalms), 11th century.
By 1025, Basil had annexed Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire had control of much of the Balkans and parts of Georgia and Armenia. The treasury overflowed. The borders were secure.
Basil the Bulgar Slayer died 1,000 years ago tomorrow, 15 December 1025.
Within fifty years, everything Basil had gained was lost. But the epithet stuck. A lifetime’s reign distilled into three words.
“
You see these ships? I built these ships.
Do they call me Juan the Shipbuilder? No.
You see these houses? I built these houses.
Do they call me Juan the Housebuilder? No.
But I kiss one pig…
ANON
Talk to me...
I am lucky enough to receive some great feedback about The Breezer from readers. We're all curious and find a wide range of historical characters and events fascinating. But occasionally, a specific subject will resonate all the more. If you have any areas of history that resonate with you, I would love to dig deep and include them in future Breezers. Just drop me an email at steve@battingthebreeze.com and let me know. Thanks, Steve
Question of the Week
She was an English author, writing six major novels.
She died in 1817, aged 41.
Her most famous book was originally called First Impressions.
The Prince Regent (later George IV) was a devoted fan. Through his librarian, he made an offer that she was in no position to refuse: to dedicate her next novel to the future King. She obliged and published Emma in 1815.
Her writing was revolutionary: she wrote about ordinary people living ordinary lives and made it absolutely riveting. No crime mysteries, no gothic novels with haunted castles; just an unnerving ability to observe and record human nature in a touching, humorous and entertaining way.
Who was she?
And Finally…
Arthur Stanley Jefferson was born in Ulverston, England in 1890. He pursued a career in British music halls before moving to the United States with Fred Karno’s troupe, where he acted as Charlie Chaplin’s understudy.
Norvell Hardy was born in 1892 in Harlem, Georgia, US. He performed in local Georgia theatres before moving to Florida to work in the fast-growing film industry.
Arthur changed his name to Stan Laurel about the time Norvell adopted his father’s first name, Oliver.
Stan and Oliver first appeared together in the film The Lucky Dog in 1921. They would become the revered comedy duo Laurel and Hardy six years later in 1927 when they featured in the silent short film Putting Pants on Philip.
Laurel and Hardy would make 107 films together over the next three decades.
Laurel and Hardy, 1943.
If you and I are about the same age, you might remember the irrepressible comedy duo singing…
“
In the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia
On the trail of the lonesome pine
In the pale moonshine our hearts entwine
Where she carved her name and I carved mine
Oh, June, like the mountains I’m blue
Like the pine I am lonesome for you
In the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia
On the trail of the lonesome pine
The Trail of the Lonesome Pine actually reached No. 2 in the UK pop charts 50 years ago today, 14 December 1975, despite Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy having died ten and eighteen years earlier respectively.
For the record, Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody prevented Laurel and Hardy from achieving the No. 1 spot.
Thank you for joining me. Have a great week!
Steve
HOST & CHIEF STORY HUNTER
P:S: Incidentally, I am always keen to receive your feedback to help me continuously improve this newsletter and the podcast. Just hit reply to this email and...... let it rip! I respond to every email that I receive.
Jane Austen was born 250 years ago this Tuesday, 16 December 1775.
I live in Hampshire on the south coast of England. Hampshire is Jane Austen country. She was born at Steventon Rectory near Basingstoke, where she lived for the first 25 years of her life. After a few short years in Bath, she moved back into Hampshire and spent her remaining days at Chawton Cottage, 15 miles from the capital city of Hampshire, Winchester.
Jane Austen, portrait by her sister, Cassandra, 1870.
Austen’s best-known novels are Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1815), Northanger Abbey (published 1817, posthumously), and Persuasion (published 1817, posthumously).
Jane wrote the first draft of Pride and Prejudice between 1796 and 1797 when she was just 20-21 years old. Her father sent the draft to publisher Thomas Cadell offering to pay the publication costs himself.
Cadell rejected the approach without even reading the draft. ‘Declined by Return of Post’. The book would be published in 1813.
Pride and Prejudice has sold over 20 million copies since then. Jane Austen sold the copyright of the book for a one-off payment of £110.
In her final year, Austen travelled into Winchester to seek medical attention but died later that year. She is buried in Winchester Cathedral.
Her gravestone noted her Christian virtues and the ‘sweetness of her temper’, but made no reference to being one of the most famous writers in the English language.
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