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Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window
Johannes Vermeer · Baroque & Dutch Golden Age
- Artist
- Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675)
- Date
- c. 1657–1659
- Dimensions
- 83 x 64.5 cm
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Location
- Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, Germany
A young woman stands at an open window, absorbed in a letter. A rumpled oriental carpet and a bowl of fruit lie on the table in front of her, and a green curtain hangs at the right as if pulled aside to reveal the scene.
A closer look
The light from the window falls on her face and the paper, and her reflection appears faintly in the glass. Vermeer’s typical stillness and silence invite us to wonder what the letter says. For centuries the wall behind her was bare. A restoration completed in 2021 removed later overpaint and revealed a large painting of Cupid hanging on the wall, which had been covered decades after Vermeer’s death. Cupid makes clear that this is a love letter.
History of the painting
When Augustus III, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, bought the painting in Paris in 1742 for his gallery in Dresden, it was believed to be by Rembrandt; later it was attributed to Pieter de Hooch, and only in the 1860s was Vermeer's name restored, as his reputation was being rediscovered. At the end of the Second World War the Soviet army took it to Moscow with the rest of the Dresden collection, and it returned to Dresden in 1955.
More by Johannes Vermeer
In this gallery
Girl with a Pearl Earring
The Milkmaid
View of Delft
The Art of Painting
The Little Street
Woman Holding a Balance
The Astronomer
The Lacemaker
Famous works elsewhere
- The Geographer 1668
- The Procuress 1656
- Christ in the House of Martha and Mary 1650
- A Girl Asleep 1657
- Diana and her Nymphs 1650