The Milkmaid

One of the small leaded panes in the upper-left window has a clear diagonal crack. Window glass was thin, brittle, expensive in 17th-century Delft. Vermeer's interiors are often read as idealised; this one is not. He painted his maid in a working kitchen with a window the household hadn't repaired. Infrared imaging shows the crack was in the under- drawing too. Original to the painting, not damage. Now at Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam @rijksmuseum