Young Woman with a Water Pitcher

Vermeer captured a young woman pausing at an open window, one hand on a silver water pitcher, the other lifting the leaded-glass frame. The play of morning light across her white linen cap and the pitcher’s polished surface exemplifies Vermeer’s unmatched ability to render the textures of quiet domestic life.
The painting is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession 89.15.21), Marquand Collection, Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1889.