Lady writing a letter with her maid

By Silvia del Pozo

Artist: Johannes Vermeer

Year: c. 1670–71 Type: Oil on

canvas Dimensions:

72.2 cm × 59.5 cm (28.4 in × 23.4 in)

Location: National Gallery of Ireland

Messenger for the lady and the lover.Inner restless and boredom.Similar to Gabriel Metsu’s painting.

The maid

Inspiration from the Lacemaker.

The patch of bright white wall contrasts her right hand silhouette.

The Lady

Suggests a quality of bourgeois life.It is an ideal as the Dutch preferred

floor made of wood.

The floor

Maybe one that the lady has received or a draft that she rejected.

The letterThe carpet• Decorative designs reduced to a sort of calligraphic shorthand.• Knotty texture erased by an exceptionally smooth

The chair and the objects tossed on the floor might indicate that some action would have just taken place.

The chairThe floor tiles•This is a tribute to his beloved Delft including a row of locally-made floor tiles.

It functions as a familiar pictorial device called repoussoir.

This means a contrast by placing a large figure or object in the foreground of a painting.

The green curtain

Parrhasius and Zeuxis

It establishes one of the three strong diagonal lines.

It softens the rectiliniar design of the composition.

The white curtain

The leadings of the window seem to be identical in design with the ones in the Music Lesson but in this picture the central design has been colored.

The window

It is a Finding of Moses. It follows the same technique of pictures

within-a-picture.The same Moses appears in the Astronomer.

The painting

This painting has been stolen two times in the last twenty-five years.

In 1974 by the IRA. It was recovered a week later.

In 1986 by a gang led by the Dublin organized crime gang leader Martin Cahill. Only after more than seven years of secret negotiations and international detective work was the painting recovered.

As a curiosity…