The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Vermeer’s Masterpiece The Milkmaid

September 10 – November 29, 2009

In celebration of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s voyage from Amsterdam to New York, the Rijksmuseum has lent The Milkmaid—perhaps Johannes Vermeer’s most admired painting—for display alongside all five of the Met’s Vermeers. This once-in-a-lifetime exhibition provides a unique opportunity to see six of only 36 surviving paintings by the great Dutch master together in one setting.

The Milkmaid will join paintings by Vermeer in the Met’s collection, including Young Woman with a Water Pitcher (ca. 1662), A Maid Asleep (1656-57), and Study of a Young Woman (probably ca. 1665–67). Important works by renowned Delft masters (Pieter de Hooch and Emanuel de Witte) and other Dutch artists who were admired by Vermeer (Gerard ter Borch, Nicolaes Maes, and Gabriel Metsu) are also featured and help place The Milkmaid in the proper historical context of the Dutch Golden Age, a period marked by exploration, trade, and artistic flowering.

The exhibition is made possible by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, Daphne Recanati Kaplan and Thomas S. Kaplan, and Bernard and Louise Palitz.

Johannes Vermeer, The Milkmaid, ca. 1658,
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.