THE SLEEPING GIRL
Jan van der Meer of Delft (1632-1675)
want you to know and love the Dutch pictures. The painters were called "little masters," simply because they painted small pictures for the homes. For the homes! The Dutch wanted pictures to hang on their walls; pictures they could live with. Now what do you think of the "Sleeping Girl"? Do you know I could live with that picture and feel that I always had something to make me happy? It is so homy. See how comfortable the girl is! Of course a good healthy girl has no business to be sleeping in the daytime, but we can forgive her now that van der Meer has caught her asleep and let us see her. Then look at that wonderful rug! Was ever anything so soft and velvety? If we knew about rugs we might tell its name and maybe its age.
Van der Meer had a way of catching people without their knowing it. He seems to have cut a piece out of the wall where he peeped in and painted what he saw. We are glad the girl left the door open into another room so that we can see the table and pictures and part of the window-frame. I think these things are reflected in a looking-glass.
Van der Meer painted only about forty pictures, and eight of those are in the United States. They are among our greatest art treasures.
Fig. 47. The Sleeping Girl. Van der Meer. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City