Vermeer’s Love Letters

Johannes Vermeer, Mistress and Maid, ca. 1664–67, The Frick Collection, New York.

Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) is best known for his paintings of everyday life, often set in light-filled domestic spaces. Of the approximately three dozen works by the artist surviving today, six explore reading, writing, and exchanging letters, popular subjects in the artist’s circle of Dutch painters. Three of these centre on an interaction between a woman and her maidservant. The exhibition Vermeer’s Love Letters unites these three works - the Frick’s Mistress and Maid, the Rijksmuseum’s Love Letter and the National Gallery of Ireland’s Woman Writing a Letter with Her Maid. Their presentation in a single gallery for the first time offers visitors an opportunity to consider Vermeer’s treatment of the theme of letters as well as his depiction of women of different social classes.

The paintings differ in scale, action, and perspective, but all three create enigmatic narratives, a hallmark of Vermeer’s creative production. As the primary mode of remote communication, letters were a critical and versatile topic in Vermeer’s time, as reflected in the publication of manuals on the art and decorum of epistolary exchange. Servants played a crucial role. Employers entrusted them with delivery, especially when messages needed to be shared covertly. While the contents of the letters in Vermeer’s paintings are not made clear, they are most likely amorous. Courtship and love letters were an important part of the artist’s social context and a prevalent artistic theme.

The Love Letter and Woman Writing a Letter with Her Maid appear to have had a special place in the life of Vermeer’s widow, Catharina Bolnes. Her husband’s death at age forty-three left her to raise their eleven children with obligations that led to bankruptcy. To settle a large debt for bread, she gave the two paintings to the baker, on the condition that she could one day buy them back. This suggests that they were not simply inventory from her late husband’s studio but rather treasured personal property. She does not, however, appear to have regained them.