The Frick Collection in New York has opened "Vermeer's Love Letters," a focused exhibition celebrating the museum's reopening after renovation. The show presents three of Johannes Vermeer's six paintings depicting women with letters, offering visitors a complete look at the Dutch master's exploration of romantic correspondence in 17th-century Netherlands.
Before the age of digital messaging, romantic communication required patience and artistry. Admirers would write thoughtful letters on paper and mail them, creating anticipation as recipients waited days for responses. These physical letters could be treasured, shared with friends, dramatically burned, or casually discarded - a far cry from today's instant digital messages.
The exhibition displays each painting on individual blue-gray, shadow-boxed pedestals, arranged like "well-mannered standing stones" to encourage careful observation. All three works share common elements: a lady, a maid, and a letter, representing the complete collection of Vermeer's paintings featuring this specific motif. Recent research reveals that women played significant roles in art acquisition during 17th-century Netherlands, which helps explain their prominence in Vermeer's work.
Two of these paintings held special meaning for Vermeer's wife, Catherine Bolnes, who tried to keep them after the artist's death but was forced to sell them to support her large family. The works likely reminded her of her youth, flirtation, and the power women held through written communication.
The three paintings reveal fascinating differences in their details. In "The Love Letter" (c. 1669-70) from the Rijksmuseum, a woman has been interrupted while playing a cittern, a lute-like instrument associated with love and female sexuality. The composition frames viewers as if peering through a doorway from an adjacent darkened room, with musical scores piled on a chair and household items scattered in the foreground.
"Mistress and Maid" (c. 1664-67) from The Frick Collection shows the subject in a buttery yellow satin dress with vermillion ribbon trim positioned strategically between her jacket lapels. The maid, with pink cheeks showing her importance, interrupts her employer who is writing one letter to deliver another, causing the lady to raise her hand to her chin in confusion. The women seem almost immaterial, their edges dissolving into the black background.
In "Woman Writing a Letter with Her Maid" (c. 1670-72) from the National Gallery of Ireland, the subject actively writes while her maid stands by, smiling and looking out the window in a rare moment of interiority. A blue chair sits pulled out as if just abandoned, with a sheet of paper bearing Vermeer's signature draping over the table's edge toward viewers.
The exhibition design deliberately offsets the displays to prevent viewers from making direct visual connections between the works, encouraging individual contemplation of each piece. Scholar Robert Fucci has provided a handsomely illustrated catalog exploring letters, maids, and courtship in the Dutch Republic.
Art historian Leo Steinberg once described learning to truly observe art during the London Blitz, when the National Gallery displayed single paintings each day before returning them to storage each night. The Frick's focused approach may offer similar benefits in our age of shortened attention spans, helping visitors engage more deeply with fewer works.
The exhibition continues at The Frick Collection on Manhattan's Upper East Side through August 31, offering visitors a unique opportunity to examine Vermeer's masterful portrayal of romantic communication in an era when letters carried the weight of hearts and futures.
