Look past the pearl earring

In its first show after a five-year renovation, the Frick museum showcases Vermeer's delicate portraits of women exchanging letters. It unveils the beauty and hardship of their shared inner lives and the Dutch master’s own struggle to create art amid wartime chaos

- Gowri S

he light of a soft winter sun illuminates the faces of two very different women.

One leans over a desk, writing a letter. The other, her maid, looks toward the window with an air of mild impatience. The light streaming in through a window picks out tiny details in this scene of seemingly mundane domesticity: a quietly chaotic painting ‘ona wall, a piece of discarded parchment on the floor.

Painted between 1670 and 1672, Woman Writing a Letter with Her Maid is one of three epistolary works displayed side-by-side at The Frick Collection in New York, in its first show after a major, five-year renovation.

All three works are by the Dutch master Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), known best for A Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665). Vermeer died aged just 43, bankrupt and ina state of penury. Only 37 of his paintings survive. Most depict scenes of serene domesticity. We'll get to why that's ironic ina bit.