Art › Amsterdam › The Rijksmuseum
The Milkmaid
Het melkmeisje
A kitchen maid pours milk into a bowl by the window, the bread on the table catching the light.
Nothing happens: a maid, absorbed, pours a thin stream of milk, likely for bread pudding. Vermeer made the crust of the bread glitter with dots of light, and painted out a basket of clothes he had first put by the wall.
It is small, only 45 cm high. The state bought it for the Rijksmuseum in 1908, after a debate in parliament over its price. Stand before it in 3D ›
