The Love Letter

We look in through a dark doorway

In The Love Letter, Vermeer places us outside the room. A dark doorframe and a heavy curtain fill the edges of the picture, and we see the scene beyond as if from a corridor. A mistress and her maid are caught in a private moment.

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, which owns the painting, dates it to about 1669 to 1670. It is small, 44 by 38.5 centimetres, and signed on the wall behind the maid.

A glance between two women

The mistress sits holding a cittern, a stringed instrument, and a sealed letter that the maid has just handed to her. She looks up at the maid with a questioning expression. The maid stands beside her, smiling slightly, hands at rest.

The exchange of looks carries the story. We do not know who wrote the letter, but the maid’s knowing smile and the mistress’s uncertainty suggest it is from a lover. Music, too, was often associated with love in Dutch painting.

A ship on calm water

Behind the women hang two paintings. The lower one shows a ship at sea under clouds; above it is a landscape with a path. In Dutch imagery of the period, the sea was a familiar metaphor for love, with the lover compared to a ship.

The sea in this picture within a picture appears calm. Some writers read this as a hopeful sign for the love affair. It is an interpretation, but Vermeer often used paintings on the wall to comment on his scenes.

Slippers and a broom left on the floor

In the foreground, the chequered floor of black and white tiles leads us into the room. A pair of slippers lies abandoned, and a broom leans against the wall. Household work has been interrupted.

These small details suggest disorder, perhaps distraction. Dutch moralising imagery sometimes used neglected housework to hint at a mind on other things. Vermeer leaves the meaning open.

A laundry basket and a signature

Near the maid stands a basket of laundry with a sewing cushion on the floor beside it. On the wall just above, Vermeer signed the painting. These everyday objects anchor the romantic subject in an ordinary household.

The painting has its own dramatic history. In 1971 it was stolen while on loan to an exhibition in Brussels, cut from its frame and damaged. It was recovered and restored, and has been in the Rijksmuseum since 1893.

Questions about The Love Letter

When was it painted?

About 1669 to 1670.

Where is the original?

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-1595).

What instrument does the woman hold?

A cittern, a stringed instrument popular in the seventeenth century.

How large is it?

44 × 38.5 centimetres, oil on canvas.

Sources and image credit

• Rijksmuseum: The Love Letter, SK-A-1595
• Wikimedia Commons: Google Art Project scan

Faithful public-domain reproduction of The Love Letter (about 1669 to 1670), via Wikimedia Commons (Google Art Project). Detail images are crops of the same historical painting; no reconstruction or upscaling.