Despite its size, Girl with a Red Hat has immense visual impact, powerful colouring and boldness. Placed in the foreground of the picture, the subject is exotically dressed with slightly parted lips. Her extravagant, feathery hat and luxuriant blue wrap are unusually flamboyant for Vermeer's normal gallery of subjects, and their rich colour scheme is carefully contrasted with a muted background which serves to emphasize the overall theatrical feeling of the work. Her hat is painted in a dense hue of purple, overlaid with added brushstrokes of semi-transparent vermilion for the light-catching feathers. A bright white kerchief is included to draw attention to her face, although the broad brim of the hat casts a shadow over most of her face, leaving only her left cheek illuminated, below her eye, to heighten our curiosity. The pattern of drapery folds have been rendered with the same sort of fluid brushwork as that in The Lacemaker (c.1669, Louvre, Paris), which also features a similar light source. Girl with a Red Hat repeats the overall position of the arm in Girl with a Flute, although the sitter is leaning on her right arm, instead of the left. The backrest of the chair is embellished with lions' heads and rings.