Johannes Vermeer's "The Milkmaid"

Nationality: Dutch
Born-Died: 1632-1675
Creation Date: c. 1657-1658
Size: 17.875 × 16.125 inch (45.5 × 41 cm)
Media: Oil on canvas
Location: The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

This was the first Vermeer painting that I ever saw in person.  I am happy to acknowledge (now) that this painting is absolutely amazing, but when I saw this painting in person the experience was unfortunately ruined by two things... 1.) a pretentious and extremely fake colleague of mine 2.) my own inability to let stupid comments go.  This annoying colleague had visited the Rijksmuseum a little bit before me and he made a point, in an extremely annoying and phoney way, to relay his experience with tales of how he "cried" when he saw this painting.  It was very obvious that at the time, he was looking for some kind of attention.  When I went to see the works for myself I kept thinking about what a loser that guy was and I really could not appreciate any of the Vermeer works! 

Ironically, this same thing happened when I went to see a concert of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, which I was really looking forward to hearing.  Literally minutes before the concert started someone said some very stupid, irritating things and those comments were all I could think about during the entire performance.  Now that's irritating!