Painting facts

**Johannes Vermeer, _The Milkmaid_ / _De Melkmeid_, c. 1658–1660.** Oil on canvas, 45.5 × 41 cm; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, object no. SK-A-2344. The museum emphasizes the painting’s stillness: only the thin stream of milk moves, while the maid stands with sculptural calm in a brightly lit room. Scholarly and museum sources also note Vermeer’s unusually tactile handling of light—especially the small colored highlights, or _pointillés_, on bread, pottery, cloth, and skin. **References:** Rijksmuseum collection record SK-A-2344; Rijksmuseum 2023 Vermeer exhibition texts; Walter Liedtke, Metropolitan Museum of Art essay on Vermeer and _The Milkmaid_; _Occupational Medicine_ 73, no. 6 (2023), 297.

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