The Milkmaid

The only thing moving is the milk

A kitchen maid stands at a table by a window, pouring milk from a jug into a wide earthenware pot. The thin white stream is the only movement in the painting. Everything else is still.

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, which has owned the painting since 1908, dates it to about 1660. It is small, only 45.5 by 41 centimetres, yet it has become one of the most famous Dutch paintings in the world.

The maid concentrates entirely on her task. Her eyes are lowered, her lips slightly parted. We watch her without her noticing us.

A face in soft light

Light from the window falls on her white linen cap and on the side of her face. The cap is built from thick, creamy paint with grey and blue shadows in its folds. Her cheeks are ruddy, the face of someone who works.

Vermeer did not idealise her. She is solid and strong, with broad shoulders and rolled-up sleeves showing muscular forearms. Dignity comes from her concentration, not from beauty.

Bread that sparkles with light

On the table, a basket holds a dark loaf and broken pieces of bread. Vermeer covered their crusts with small dots of bright paint, a technique often called pointillé. The bread seems to glitter in the light.

Next to it stands a stoneware jug with a blue pattern, and a blue cloth lies across the table. The milk, bread and pot suggest she is preparing a dish such as bread pudding, though the painting does not tell us exactly what.

The blue apron

Her apron is a deep, brilliant blue. Vermeer used natural ultramarine, a pigment made from ground lapis lazuli that was more expensive than gold. He also used it in the shadows of the cap and in the cloth on the table.

Spending such a costly material on a servant’s apron says something about how seriously Vermeer took this ordinary scene. The yellow bodice and the blue apron form a strong pairing of colours that holds the whole composition together.

A bare wall full of details

The window at the left has a cracked pane. Below it, a wicker basket and a brass bucket hang on the wall. Further across, the plaster is marked with nail holes and a single nail with its own small shadow.

These details make the wall feel real and used. Vermeer painted the light falling across it so carefully that the bare plaster becomes as interesting as the figure.

A foot warmer and a row of tiles

On the floor at the right sits a wooden foot warmer, a box that held a pot of hot coals. Behind it, a row of Delft tiles runs along the base of the wall, painted with small figures including a Cupid.

Some writers have read the Cupid and the foot warmer, which was associated with women keeping warm under their skirts, as a hidden hint of desire. Others see them simply as household objects. The painting allows both readings without confirming either.

Questions about The Milkmaid

When was The Milkmaid painted?

About 1660, according to the Rijksmuseum.

Where is the original?

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-2344), purchased in 1908 with support from the Vereniging Rembrandt.

How large is it?

45.5 × 41 centimetres, oil on canvas.

What is she making?

The painting does not say. Milk and broken bread suggest a dish such as bread pudding.

Sources and image credit

• Rijksmuseum: The Milkmaid, SK-A-2344
• Wikimedia Commons: Google Art Project scan

Faithful public-domain reproduction of The Milkmaid (about 1660), via Wikimedia Commons (Google Art Project). Detail images are crops of the same historical painting; no reconstruction or upscaling.