This work is small and detailed – in real life, it’s
17.5cm taller than the height of the magazine.
Wearing a white headdress, yellow bodice with
green sleeves and a blue apron, a kitchen maid
(milkmaids milked cows) pours milk from a jug
into a cooking pot. Light from a window on the
left-hand side falls on to her forehead, bodice and
forearms. On the table is a basket of bread and
rolls. Sunlight picks out details of textures and
colours. The maid is no idealised goddess, but
a real woman engrossed in her domestic work.
This is a traditional type of 16th/17th century
Netherlandish art called a ‘kitchen piece’,
combining both ‘genre’ (showing scenes of
everyday life) and still-life painting. Diligence, purity
and love are being conveyed. It’s a working kitchen;
the walls are rough and imperfect, the bread is in
coarse baskets, but the shiny copper pot on the
wall is used to symbolise purity. Look at the Delft
tiles near the floor, one depicts Cupid with his bow,
suggesting that she might be dreaming of love,
while another nearby features a man with a walking
stick and knapsack, indicating that her love might
be far away. These ideas are backed up by the
brown box on the floor behind her, a foot warmer- symbolising a man courting a woman.
Vermeer is known for evoking a sense of
shimmering light and colour. This is because, unlike
most Dutch painters, Vermeer regularly used some
of the most expensive pigments available, including
natural ultramarine, one of the costliest, and he
used a unique painting technique of small dots
called pointillé. You may have noticed how all the
lines of the composition lead towards the woman
herself and helps to draw attention towards her
and the pouring of the milk.
The Milkmaid
JOHANNES VERMEER, C.1660IMAGE:©WIKIMEDIA/RIJKSMUSEUM/PUBLIC DOMAINThis work is small and detailed – in real life, it’s
17.5cm taller than the height of the magazine.
Wearing a white headdress, yellow bodice with
green sleeves and a blue apron, a kitchen maid
(milkmaids milked cows) pours milk from a jug
into a cooking pot. Light from a window on the
left-hand side falls on to her forehead, bodice and
forearms. On the table is a basket of bread and
rolls. Sunlight picks out details of textures and
colours. The maid is no idealised goddess, but
a real woman engrossed in her domestic work.
This is a traditional type of 16th/17th century
Netherlandish art called a ‘kitchen piece’,
combining both ‘genre’ (showing scenes of
everyday life) and still-life painting. Diligence, purity
and love are being conveyed. It’s a working kitchen;
the walls are rough and imperfect, the bread is in
coarse baskets, but the shiny copper pot on the
wall is used to symbolise purity. Look at the Delft
tiles near the floor, one depicts Cupid with his bow,
suggesting that she might be dreaming of love,
while another nearby features a man with a walking
stick and knapsack, indicating that her love might
be far away. These ideas are backed up by the
brown box on the floor behind her, a foot warmer
- symbolising a man courting a woman.
Vermeer is known for evoking a sense of
shimmering light and colour. This is because, unlike
most Dutch painters, Vermeer regularly used some
of the most expensive pigments available, including
natural ultramarine, one of the costliest, and he
used a unique painting technique of small dots
called pointillé. You may have noticed how all the
lines of the composition lead towards the woman
herself and helps to draw attention towards her
and the pouring of the milk.
The Milkmaid
JOHANNES VERMEER, C.1660
IMAGE:©WIKIMEDIA/RIJKSMUSEUM/PUBLIC DOMAIN