Vermeer, Jan (1632-1675) The Milkmaid (Het melkmeisje) 1660 Oil on canvas, 45.5 x 41 cm Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam A maidservant pours milk, entirely absorbed in her work. Except for the stream of milk, everything else is still. Vermeer took this simple everyday…
Vermeer, Jan (1632-1675) The Love Letter (De liefdesbrief) 1669 Oil on canvas, 44 x 38.5 cm Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Vermeer chose an unusual vantage point for this painting. From a dim space in the foreground, a glimpse is afforded of another room…
Vermeer, Jan (1632-1675) A Maid Asleep (Slapend meisje) 1656–1657 Oil on canvas, 87.6 x 76.5 cm Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York The misbehavior of unsupervised maidservants was a common subject for seventeenth-century Dutch painters. Yet in his depiction of a…
Caravaggio (1571-1610) Salomè con la testa del Battista (Salome receives the Head of John the Baptist) c.1609–1610 Oil on canvas, 91.5 x 106.7 cm National Gallery, London The story of the death of Saint John the Baptist is related in the Gospel…
Turner, Joseph Mallord William (1775-1851) Dido building Carthage 1815 Oil on canvas, 155.5 x 230 cm National Gallery, London Turner’s painting is based on the English seventeenth-century author and poet John Dryden’s translation of the Aeneid, the monumental Latin poem written by…