Vermeer might have found a patron in…

Vermeer might have found a patron in the local art collector Pieter van Ruijven, who lent him some money in 1657.

The Milkmaid (De Melkmeid or Het Melkmeisje), sometimes called The Kitchen Maid, an oil-on-canvas painting of a "milkmaid", in fact a domestic kitchen maid, is today housed in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, which esteems it as "unquestionably one of the museum's finest attractions".

The exact year of the painting's completion is unknown, with estimates varying by source.

The Rijksmuseum estimates it as circa 1658.

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, it was painted in about 1657 or 1658.

The "Essential Vermeer" website gives a broader range of 1658–1661.

The painting is strikingly illusionistic, conveying not just details but a sense of the weight of the woman and the table.