How did we miss this for 350 years?

This is probably one of the most studied paintings by Johannes Vermeer. This image has been analysed for centuries by historians, art critics and experts in 17th century Dutch painting. All of them have looked at this image over and over again and yet there is a detail on the floor of this room that for a long time went completely unnoticed. An object that most people overlook but that once you understand what it means could completely change the way you read this painting. This work is called The Milkmaid. It was painted by Johannes Vermeer around 1658 when the artist was just 25 years old and today it is held at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. When you see the painting for the first time it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking it is a simple painting. In it we see a woman pouring milk from an earthenware jug. In front of her on a small table we can see a loaf of bread in a wicker basket along with other pieces of stale bread. What this woman is probably doing is preparing a bread pudding, soaking the ingredients before baking it. There is no doubt that the atmosphere is calm and that the painting is focused on the woman and her work but Vermeer was an artist known for the care with which he placed every element in his paintings and in this work nothing is placed by chance. If we look carefully the first thing we notice is how Vermeer constructed the balance of this image. The left side is packed with objects and textures. On this side we find the window, the breads, the jug and the basket while the right side is reduced to a plain wall and a small section of floor and yet nothing seems out of place or disorganised. The key to this lies in the light. A window on the left edge of the canvas with one of its panes broken naturally illuminates the wide plaster surface behind the woman's shoulder. The cracks and nail holes in the wall give it texture and the point of greatest contrast between light and darkness falls on the right edge of the woman's outline creating a natural flow from left to right that stabilises the entire scene. There is also something curious about the shape of the table. If we look closely its left edge is pressed against the wall while the right edge juts out into the room at an angle as if it were missing a corner. This expands the visual space and guides the viewer's eye along the illuminated edge of the table toward the centre of the scene. And then there are the textures. Vermeer painted the reflections of the bread and the ceramics with fairly thick brush strokes, a technique known as pointillism. The blue and white reflections on the surface of the ceramic vessel suggest a glazed shine. The grainy texture of the bread crusts looks almost touchable and the three objects hanging on the wall, a black frame, a straw basket and a brass container work in unison cascading down the wall toward the main focal point of the painting. Everything in this image is designed to make us stop, to make us look more carefully and to make us keep discovering things every time we look at it. And now we come to the object on the floor. In the lower left corner of the painting in plain sight there is a perforated wooden box. This box is a foot warmer, a very common object in 17th century Dutch households that contained hot coals inside and was used to keep feet and legs warm during the cold Dutch winters. We might think it is just another domestic detail, an everyday object that Vermeer included to set the scene, but it is not. In 17th century Dutch art, the foot warmer had connotations that viewers of the time would have recognised immediately. This object was usually placed under women's skirts, radiating heat throughout the lower part of the body. And in many paintings of the era, its presence was a deliberate suggestion of sexual desire. But there is more. If we look at the wall behind the foot warmer, we can see a row of delft tiles and on one of those tiles, the one on the left to be precise, there is Cupid, the god of desire and love with his wings and his bow. Vermeer placed him there deliberately. In Dutch art of the time, there was a strong tradition of infusing simple kitchen scenes with erotic undertones. Milkmaids in particular, who were usually young single women who travelled from the countryside to the city in search of work, were frequently depicted with connotations of sexual desire. But the question is, did Vermeer really include this detail with that intention? Before answering that question, I would like to remind you that if you would like to have this painting in your collection, you can purchase it directly from our website. In the link in the description, you can visit our catalogue and find more than 900 carefully selected works so you can begin your own art collection. Shipping is free worldwide and by purchasing from the store, you will be supporting me enormously and continuing to create videos like this every week. Now then, let's continue. Something worth considering is that Vermeer tended to have a very recognisable visual language in his paintings. In almost all of his works, the same elements appear, whether it is a window on the left side, natural light entering at an angle or a woman alone in a quiet interior, surrounded by everyday objects loaded with meaning. This logic is visible in other paintings such as girl with a pearl earring, woman reading a letter or woman with a water jug. Something that almost all of his works have in common is that they give us the same feeling of observing something intimate from the outside, but the milkmaid has something that sets it apart from all the others. X-ray studies carried out on this painting revealed something very few people know. In its original version, Vermeer had included a basket of clothes in the right corner of the scene. So at some point during the creation of this work, Vermeer made the decision to remove it. And in its place, he put the foot warmer. Which means that Vermeer not only knew exactly what connotations that object had for the viewer of his time, he actively chose to include it at the expense of another element. And that completely changes the way we should interpret this artist's intention. As I mentioned at the beginning of this video, if we look at this woman carefully, what we see is not a provocative figure at all. She is a woman in rough clothing with a starched linen cap and thick sleeves known as patchwork sleeves. Her complexion is slightly flushed from work, and the fact that she is making use of stale bread to prepare a pudding rather than wasting it was in that era a clear sign of domestic virtue. From this perspective, the foot warmer would not be an erotic suggestion, but simply the reward waiting for her after a hard day's work, the rest that will come when the work is done. And in this less erotic sense, Cupid would be a reminder that love is still present, even if household duties come first for now. Two completely different readings, but both fitting perfectly into the same image. And Vermeer, with his extraordinary sensitivity for nuance, probably had both in mind when he painted this picture. Although the Milkmaid was painted more than 350 years ago, it remains one of the most contemplated and most debated images in the history of Dutch art. Perhaps because Vermeer never painted simple scenes, but rather his paintings tend to be full of unanswered questions. And this one, with its foot warmer and its hidden Cupid, is no exception. I would love for you to leave me in the comments which of these interpretations seems most accurate to you, and for us to debate in the comments what you think Vermeer's intention was in placing that foot warmer in the painting. Thank you for staying until the end, and I will see you in the next video.