The Story
A Girl Asleep (Dutch: Slapend meisje), also known as A Woman Asleep, A Woman Asleep at Table, and A Maid Asleep, is a painting by the Dutch master Johannes Vermeer, created c. 1657. It is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and may not be lent elsewhere under the terms of the donor's bequest.
Created in 1657 during the Baroque period, this work belongs firmly within the daily life tradition. Johannes Vermeer worked at a moment when the rivalry between Catholic Baroque drama and Protestant restraint reshaped what a painting could mean. Every gesture, fabric, and gleam of light was decoded by contemporary viewers like a private language.
Executed in Oil on canvas, measuring 34 1/2 x 30 1/8 in. (87.6 x 76.5 cm), the surface rewards close looking. Johannes Vermeer builds the composition through layered glazes and a tightly controlled palette, letting cool shadows recede so that the warm, lit passages step forward. The brushwork shifts from the precise to the almost dissolved — a hallmark of mature Baroque practice.
“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”
