Michael Sweerts

A young maidservant

Canvas, 61 x 53.5

This extraordinary depiction of a young girl - datable to around 1660 - is undoubtedly one of Michael Sweerts's most beautiful works. It has been compared with Girl with a pearl earring, which Vermeer (1632-1675) would paint some five years later.

• "The rendering of her skin is a technical marvel on a par with Rembrandt's or Gerard ter Borch's greatest adventures in naturalism: rosy where it should be rosy; blue-shadowed between the bridge of the nose and the eyes." - 

• "One painting there completely bowled me over. This one. Apart from her melancholy glance, do you notice the pins in her plain dress? Knocked me out, it did. On a par with Girl with a Pearl Earring at the very least."

Visitor to the exhibition in Haarlem. Uploaded by "Willem vB" on March 3, 2009