Michael Sweerts

(Brussels 1618 - 1664 Goa)

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." -

Simon Schama in "Another Dimension", The New Yorker, October 28, 2002 p. 87.

"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