A Maid Asleep by Vermeer in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 2019

A Maid Asleep
ca. 1656–57


Object Details

Artist: Johannes Vermeer (Dutch, Delft 1632–1675 Delft)

Date: ca. 1656–57

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 34 1/2 x 30 1/8 in. (87.6 x 76.5 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913

Accession Number: 14.40.611


The misbehavior of unsupervised maidservants was a common subject for seventeenth-century Dutch painters. Yet in his depiction of a young maid dozing next to a glass of wine, Vermeer transfigured an ordinary scene into an investigation of light, color, and texture that supersedes any moralizing lesson. While the toppled glass at left (now abraded with time) and rumpled table carpet may indicate a recently departed visitor, X-radiographs indicate that Vermeer chose to remove a male figure he had originally included standing in the door­way, heightening the painting’s ambiguity.


Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437878