The chair in that earlier painting

The painting Griet is examining is one that Vermeer is working on. Griet is then seen moving a chair which is part of a scene set-up Vermeer has created to aid him visually as he paints. Griet then later re-examines the same painting - after Vermeer has asked her why she moved the chair - and find's he has painted the chair out. If you look at the bottom of that painting he is working on, you can still see some of the chair that he hasn't painted over.

It is a question of composition. The chair in the foreground closes off the space in front of the figure standing at the window. For Griet, it appears to close her in and she is aware of the spacial relationship and takes the initiative to move the prop that Vermeer had set for the painting. When she looks at the painting after her "suggestion" to the artist, she sees he has painted out the chair. It is an act far above the station of a mere cleaning maid, and that of an equal with the great Vermeer. His acknowledgement of her change in his painting is a major recognition of the role and influence that Griet has in the artistic process of Vermeer. She is critical of his work in an unspoken way, and he listened to her, something that was not the role of a woman, nor especially, for a housemaid at that time and setting. When the camera moves down the canvas, the legs of the chair that have not been painted out are clearly visible evidencing the changed mind of the artist to his earlier composition.

-- Ew lover, you gonna make me clutch my pearls --