About the work
Johannes Vermeer painted The Milkmaid around 1660, in the Dutch city where he spent his whole life. A kitchen maid pours milk into a bowl; bread, a jug and a basket sit on the table, and soft light falls through the window on the left. Nothing else happens, and that is the point: few paintings feel this calm. Scans made by the Rijksmuseum in 2022 showed that Vermeer first painted more into the scene, including a rack of jugs on the wall and a basket of coals where the foot warmer now stands, and then painted them out. As a print it belongs by a kitchen or dining table, where mornings can borrow some of its light. The original hangs in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
