Vermeer’s Milkmaid at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

A highlight of my recent visit to the Met was seeing Vermeer’s painting of The Milkmaid on loan from the Rijksmuseum. The last time the painting was seen here was 70 years ago, so it’s been a while. NYC is no stranger to Vermeer, there are 5 of his paintings in the Met and 3 at the Frick, but this is something else. The picture of a solitary woman pouring milk from a jug into a bowl with a tabletop of breads simply stuns. The colors are radiant, her apron is a pure ultramarine blue, and the details are phenomenal. The stitching in her bodice is so finely portrayed you can see the darker fabric in the individual stitches that haven’t been bleached by sunlight. Her face and arms are a ruddy, fleshy, red but her upper forearms are a doughy white. The crusts of bread sparkle in the sunlight. See it yourself before the weekend is over, otherwise you’ll have to pay for a trip to Amsterdam.