Join Ana Gasteyer, actress, comedian, and singer, for a look at one of her favorite Met objects, Johannes Vermeer’s Young Woman with a Water Pitcher (ca.1662). Along the way, Ana shares how her love of fine art began as a means of understanding history and why this view of an intimate moment in an ordinary woman’s day intrigues her.
Johannes Vermeer (Dutch 1632–1675). Young Woman with a Water Pitcher (ca. 1662). Oil on canvas. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Marquand Collection, Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1889 (89.15.21)
The first work by Johannes Vermeer to enter an American collection, this painting embodies the artist’s interest in domestic themes, giving an almost voyeuristic glimpse into the private life of a woman before she presents her public face to the world. This is a picture that embodies what is so enduringly compelling about seventeenth-century Dutch art—its connection to observation. Here, a very humble, recognizable human task is transfigured into an action of utmost beauty and refinement.
