The Milkmaid has on the surface some resemblance to the painting of Vermeer's predecessors, but both the plan of the picture and the refined style of representation belong to his maturity. The detail of life is rendered here as a bare map of the incidence of light. The optical vocabulary becomes at once so convincing and complete that it is not always recognized how deep is the change, how unexplained in this head for instance the accent of the cheek, how unexpected the omission of drawing at the base of the nose and across the expanse of shadow. There is a wide gulf between this confident manner and the head of the Laughing Girl. The maid's left arm, as comparison with the passage in the Edinburgh picture does not demonstrate, draws from neither its contour form nor supporting detail; the record of tone is bare of the structural modeling of the Dresden Letter Reader. The other arm, equally independent of convention, of necessity relies more on its defining outline, and round it are visible, strangely, the pentimenti which rarely occur in the painter's work.

The Milkmaid has been a favorite picture of those who have seen Vermeer as a simple precursor of Chardin and of Corot. It is perhaps largely in the interests of a uniform progression, in whichever direction, that it has commonly been counted among his early works.

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