Vermeer's Naughty Milkmaid - Alexandra Peers, The Daily Beast

The Milkmaid, Vermeer, c. 1658-61

The Dutch master’s most famous painting is on display in the U.S. for the first time since World War II. Alexandra Peers on the portrait’s erotic secrets.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in big need of a fall blockbuster, is rewriting art history to be just a bit more salacious. Walter Liedtke, the curator of its Vermeer’s Masterpiece: The Milkmaid exhibition, says the painting, long interpreted as a salute to the working classes, is actually a kind of discreet 17th-century paean to voyeurism, desire and sex. One highlight of the controversial new spin: The milkmaid’s famous open milk jug, according to the Met, is representative of “a portion of the female anatomy.”

Liedtke, the Met’s curator of European paintings, grants that his view is far from the mainstream. The famous circa-1660 painting is usually misread, he says, “as a Madonna of the cow pastures.” Because latter painters such as Jean-Francois Millet glorified the dignity of laborers, we typically see Vermeer’s milkmaid through those noble eyes, he explains...

Link The Daily Beast,Vermeer's Naughty Milkmaid, Alexandra Peers

Link Metropolitan Museum of Art, Vermeer Special Exhibition, Sept. 10 - Nov. 29, 2009