The Love Letter

Vermeer built this around 1669 as a scene you seem to catch by accident, looking through a dark doorway into a bright back room. A woman has stopped playing her cittern, a lute-like instrument, and turned to her maid, who has just handed her a letter and stands smiling as if she already knows what it says. For a Dutch viewer the clues were readable. The seascape on the wall behind them was a common emblem for love, the calm or stormy sea standing for how a courtship is going. The sea here is fairly steady. Vermeer leaves the letter unopened, so we never learn the news the maid seems so sure of.