Milkmaid | Linnea West

The first room of the new exhibition Vermeer’s Masterpiece, The Milkmaid at the Metropolitan Museum of Art reminds you how precious this masterpiece is with a simple device: the wall is covered with a grid of 36 images of paintings. They represent all that has survived of 17th century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer’s oeuvre of 40 or so paintings. Of those 36, The Milkmaid stands out like a jewel. The Metropolitan has The Milkmaid on loan from the Rijksmusem through November 29, and has created a small exhibition around it.

Continued here on Blogcritics.

It is a great painting, and the rest aren’t bad either. Just look at NYC’s wealth of Vermeers. And if all this is just too much sweetness and color and light for you, get a load of this guy’s codpiece:

The Archer and the Milkmaid, Andries Stock, ca. 1610

This is one of the drawing’s being shown at the Met that makes an argument for the milkmaid as sex object in 17th C. Dutch culture.

The Milkmaid, 1657, Rijksmuseum, On loan at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The economy may be dismal, but New York is still rich in some things: people, MTA delays, and- thanks to a generous loan from the Rijksmusem- Vermeers. The Met exhibition Vermeer’s Masterpiece, The Milkmaid is open until November 29, and rarely has an exhibition been so well devoted to one picture. It provides a context and education for Vermeer’s masterpiece with a slew of exceptional Dutch paintings. The Milkmaid itself is more beautiful than I knew to expect. I saw the exhibition last night and was blown away by it. I’m going back, and I suggest that you see it and take a detour to the Frick as well.

The exhibition at the Met boasts 6 Vermeers. In addition, the Frick Collection, which was unable to loan its paintings for the Met’s exhibition, has another 3 paintings by Vermeer. Currently in an afternoon on the Upper East Side a person can give themselves an education on Vermeer with 9 of his 36 existing paintings. Not bad for a recession.

The nine paintings below are even lovelier in person (except the Study of a Young Woman–would love to hear what you think of that one). They are arranged in chronological order, the first having been painted a year before The Milkmaid.