Woman Reading a Letter
Also titled Brieflezende vrouw
Johannes Vermeer (Delft, 1632–1675)
c. 1663
- Medium
- canvas, oil paint (paint)
- Classification
- painting
- Dimensions
- height 46.5 cm x width 39 cm x depth 6.5 cm
- Museum
- Rijksmuseum
- Credit line
- On loan from the City of Amsterdam (A. van der Hoop Bequest)
- Rights
- Public Domain Mark, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
About this work
Enjoying a quiet, private moment, this young woman is absorbed in reading a letter in the morning light. She is still wearing her blue night jacket. All of the colours in the composition are secondary to its radiant lapis lazuli blue. Vermeer recorded the effects of light with extraordinary precision. Particularly innovative is his rendering of the woman’s skin with pale grey, and the shadows on the wall using light blue.
