This week, Frick’s collection opened “Wilmer’s Love Letter”, a show of knowledge summer snacks that lasted until August 31, 2025, which unifies the museum. Mistress and maid (C.1664-67), love letter with Rijksmuseum (C.1669-1670) and National Gallery of Ireland A woman and her maid write a letter (C.1670-1671). Johannes Vermeer generally believes that there are only 36 existing paintings, so any combination of them is important, and the show is a great opportunity to visit the building after its major renovation, “moving Frick directly to the 21st century and seamlessly address how big it is,” Michael Kimmelman. We caught up with Dr. Robert Fucci, who planned the exhibition, to tell us more about Wilmer’s sentimental sentiment.
Vermeer’s paintings are known for their subtle data details. Can you tell us about the attitude of the letters in the contemporary era and what do you mean by the audience in other times?
The letters in the background of these paintings will express the love or courtship involved to the audience. The maid’s presence is especially important because it signals the audience, which can be a secret exchange. This raises many narrative possibilities, especially in terms of the emotions involved and the role of the maid, who is someone who is unwilling to play the feeling at both ends of the event.
What is it Mistress and maid Such an important job?
It seems to be the earliest of the three paintings, and William chooses to explore the alphabetical theme with the ladies and maids. This work has several notable features. One is just our point of view, because it is the largest of these three works and contains the largest number. As the emotions develop, this brings us closer to these characters. Especially the touch is how the lady holds the pen while wandering on the paper. She is thinking rather than writing, and it is a beautifully subtle feeling about the difficulty of finding words. Also note that the maid has just “suddenly appeared” from the other side of the curtain (hard to see due to the dark paint), which the audience should understand as a place of privacy, and the curtain is used to enclose a space for the contents of the letter to be thought and written. She received a letter to a narrative drama while she was writing, and Vermeer had a brilliant registration of some dramatic attention in her bearings by gently placing her hand on her chin.
Should the audience know about the other two works from Rijksmuseum and the National Gallery of Ireland?
These are very interesting variations of the same letters and maid themes, too rich in detail to easily sum up, but in short: the paintings of Rijksmuseum make us “active” audiences in the paintings by making our Vantage Points a voyeuristic efficient painting: we stare through the dark doors of another room. In this case, the expression communication between the lady and the maid is excellent, adding an element of humor (I think). Dublin painting is also a great work, but note that Vermeer once again decided to try to use vantage points and composition. Here, the lady who wrote the letter became the center of artistic concern, and the maid moved out the window, giving her mistress time and space free to write.
These works make me a feminist because they granted the inner life of women at that time. What is Vermeer’s relationship with women?
It can be said that William is indeed a feminist Avant La Lettrein taking love emotions seriously, representing male and female audiences in a way that builds compassion with emotions that are often affected by love in an era, in which women are often restricted by husband choices due to many factors. This is exactly what makes the maid theme so interesting, because her presence may indicate that these women are seeking women out of their parents’ attention to some extent.
To me, the three women in these paintings focus seem to be more heartbreaking than love, rather than those who sometimes don’t go hand in hand. Do you have any insight into the emotional textures presented in this show?
You are right because none of them seem to be happy during the exchange of love letters, but that is exactly what builds compassion for their various activities and reactions. Vermeer takes their feelings seriously, and in this sense, these works are very modern. Other painters of the day often used courtship themes purely for humor without having to worry about the female audience that Vermeer seemed to have ever had. The patrons of Frick’s paintings are likely to be the couple of Pieter Van Ruijven and Maria de Knuijt, and recent research shows that the wife may have more leadership roles in this sponsorship than we think. As we know since his death, we are the other two paintings that are beloved by William’s wife, Catharina Bolnes, after his death, we know that it is obvious that both are in her own hands and she wants to keep them (this is unsuccessful; she uses them to pay off the debt).
