A Maid Asleep  1657

by Johannes Vermeer

This picture is probably the earliest in which the Delft painter treats his favorite theme of a young woman, occasionally with a male companion, in a domestic interior. An overdressed maid has dozed off after entertaining a visitor (two glasses, a pitcher, and a jug may be seen in the jumbled still life). The painting above her depicts Cupid unmasked, an oblique explanatio...
Size: 
34 1/2 x 30 1/8 in. (87.6 x 76.5 cm)
Medium: 
Oil on canvas
Credit: 
Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art