The Frick Sustains its Oldest Affair in Vermeer’s Love Letters

Upon stepping into the Frick’s new exhibition room, audiences first encounter The Love Letter from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. The smallest of the triad by a full ten inches, it surveys a maid in a brown and blue dress interrupting her mistress’ cittern rehearsal by handing her a letter. The scene is cramped, framed by a darkened hallway or closet with household items— the maid’s unglamorous domain. 

Viewers are allied with the servant as she bemusedly facilitates her mistress’ courtship. The maid’s cheeky smile bolsters her nervous employer and informs audiences of the nature of the missive; witnesses are allowed into the romantic comedy and charmed by the scene.

The second painting, just left, is Mistress and Maid of the Frick’s own collection— notably, Henry Clay Frick’s last acquisition before his death in 1919. The women in this scene are dressed identically to those in Love Letter, creating a progression of exchanges; where Love Letter saw a reception, Mistress and Maid witnesses the woman in the pale yellow, fur-lined gown drafting a response. She holds the pen loosely by its end, mid-thought rather than mid-action, when her brown and blue clad maid interrupts her with another letter. 

Viewers can speculate the melodrama of its contents: a second letter from the same lover, or another courter making themself known. The class divide between women is reiterated here by the silver and glass writing instruments, veneered box, and the mistress’ curls and jewels, while Love Letter distinguished them using the perspective of the supply closet. In the Mistress and Maid, viewers are emotionally attached to the woman in yellow’s surprise, pensiveness, or wonder— her exact feelings are uncertain as she angles her head toward her maid and note.

The final painting, furthest left and farthest back, is Woman Writing a Letter with her Maid from the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin. Here, the two women enact the moments after an exchange. The maid waits patiently, occupied by the view outside a stained glass window, while her mistress, clad once again in pearl jewelry and a pale gown, scrawls passionately. 

Discarded on the tile floor is a red seal, sealing wax, and paper— perhaps an old draft crumpled up and rejected. Here, the women’s separate activities in addition to their costumes distinguish their classes. One is bound in the mechanics of courtship, while the other enjoys a respite from labor and a brief reverie. Audiences wonder if the maid imagines her own romance. In the background is a painting of the Finding of Moses, featured perhaps as a reference to fate, found families, or protectiveness.

The Frick’s deliberate arrangement builds an almost-cinematic progression of courtship which is remarkable for its absence of male characters. Viewers of this triad can only speculate: if the women are the same characters in all three paintings; if the lover to whom the mistress writes is constant; if the female emphasis implies trueness in female love rather than male; if love and domesticity are inextricably a feminine domain; and above all, what comes after the mistress in Woman Writing a Letter sends her final note. While answers to these questions remain eternally debatable, this is perhaps the Frick’s ultimate intention: to invite speculation.

The discipline of epistolary love becomes an aesthetic pleasure in this sequence of paintings. Regardless of the story’s conclusion, Vermeer’s dedication to letter-writing is mesmerizing, as is the Frick’s century-long faithfulness to the artist himself. Vermeer’s Love Letters runs at the Frick Collection through August 31st, 2025.