A Girl Asleep

Vermeer's A Girl Asleep from around 1657, at the Metropolitan Museum, is one of his earliest mature works, depicting a young woman dozing at a table in a richly furnished interior. The painting was described in an early sale catalogue as "a drunken sleeping girl at a table," suggesting a moralizing interpretation about sloth or intemperance. X-ray examination has revealed that Vermeer originally included a man in the background doorway, later painting him out—a change that transformed the narrative from a genre scene to a more ambiguous, contemplative image.

Vermeer's early technique shows the influence of the Utrecht Caravaggists in its warm palette and strong chiaroscuro, while the precisely rendered perspective of the receding rooms anticipates his mature spatial mastery. The rich textures of the oriental carpet and the woman's clothing are handled with already confident painterly skill.