Vermeer, to a greater extent than any other Dutch artist, was able to capture the delicate equilibrium between the physical stillness of a setting and a transient moment of an individual arrested within it. As in Woman Holding a Balance, he has focused here on a psychological moment by subordinating all physical action. A woman, dressed elegantly in a lemon-yellow morning jacket bordered with ermine trim, sits before a table. She holds a quill pen loosely in her right hand, while her left hand secures the paper. She looks up from her writing and regards the viewer with a slightly quizzical expression. As in so many of his masterpieces, Vermeer gives no explanation for the significance of her gaze. This characteristic has led to criticism that his paintings lack psychological penetration, but it is also an essential ingredient in the poetic suggestiveness of his images.

A Lady Writing is signed with a monogram on the lower frame of the picture on the back wall, but like most Vermeer paintings, it is not dated. The painting style and technique, as well as the woman’s costume and hairdo, however, relate to other works that appear to belong to the artist’s mature phase, in the mid-to-late 1660s. The woman’s elegant yellow jacket is almost certainly the one mentioned in the inventory of household effects made after Vermeer’s death. ^[1] It is found in three other of his paintings from this period: Young Lady Adorning Herself with a Pearl Necklace in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; Lady with a Lute in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Mistress and Maid in the Frick Collection, New York ^[fig1]. ^[2] The inkwells and the decorated casket on the table are similar to those in the Frick painting. The hairstyle, with the braided chignon on the back of the head and the ribbons tied in bows formed like stars, was popular in the third quarter of the seventeenth century, particularly after the early 1660s. ^[3]

Conceptually, this painting relates to Woman Holding a Balance, for in both works Vermeer has explored a moment in which the central figure has paused in the course of her activity. The woman’s image in A Lady Writing, however, is weightier. The delicate equilibrium between stillness and implied movement found in Woman Holding a Balance has shifted toward stillness. Likewise, Vermeer’s concern for the woman’s physical appearance—for her costume, hairstyle, and expression—has taken on greater importance. Such differences may be relevant chronologically, for they are characteristics found in a number of Vermeer’s later works. Seen in conjunction with the refined elegance of the woman’s appearance, they suggest that A Lady Writing dates slightly after the Woman Holding a Balance.

Vermeer has here significantly reduced the number of compositional elements and focused intently on the woman’s figure and a few objects in her environment. Not only is she proportionally larger and fuller than the woman holding the balance, she and the table on which she writes are quite close to the picture plane, a proximity emphasized by the directness of her gaze. Although in both paintings light enters from the left, no light source is shown in A Lady Writing. The light illuminating the tabletop, the woman’s face, and her rich lemon-yellow morning jacket is softer and more diffused than that of Woman Holding a Balance.

Vermeer limited his composition here to a few select elements that reinforce the central motif of a woman writing. He has clustered all the small objects in the painting on the table. This concentration of small shapes contrasts with the broad forms of the rest of the composition, which create a geometric framework for the figure. The picture on the back wall, for example, covers two-thirds of the width of the composition. The width of the wall to the right of the picture is equal to the height of the table, or one-half the distance from the bottom of the picture to the bottom edge of the painting itself. The width of the table, moreover, is approximately one-half the width of the painting. Such proportional relationships help balance and harmonize the essentially asymmetrical composition.

In much the same manner that Vermeer has refined his composition by eliminating extraneous elements, so has he eliminated anecdotal elements that give clues to the meaning of the painting. While he has depicted a woman, pen in hand, looking directly at the viewer, he has not indicated whether she is contemplating her message or directing her attention outward. Unlike other of Vermeer’s depictions of letter writers such as the Mistress and Maid (Frick Collection, New York), no maid delivers a letter or awaits a reply. One possible indication of the general theme of the painting may be given by the picture hanging on the back wall. This dark and barely distinguishable image appears to be a still life with musical instruments. ^[4] The only recognizable instrument is a bass viol. Musical instruments often carry implications of love, and thus it may be understood that the letter is directed to an absent lover. ^[5] Such an interpretation is supported by relating A Lady Writing to the iconographic tradition found in the works of many of Vermeer’s contemporaries, particularly Borch the Younger, Gerard ter, Metsu, Gabriel, and Mieris, Frans van. Many of these paintings of letter writers have explicit love connotations and can be related to emblematic literature. Metsu, for example, in his painting A Young Woman Composing Music in the Mauritshuis ^[fig2], has depicted a woman sitting at a table contemplating the music she is writing. ^[6] Behind her stands an attentive man, before her another woman playing a lute. Above the fireplace hangs a painting of a ship in a stormy sea. Aside from the sensuous connotations of the man and the music of the lute, the painting above the fireplace relates to emblems commenting upon the perils of love. ^[7]

Vermeer must have known Ter Borch’s Letter Writer (c. 1655, Mauritshuis, The Hague), the first Dutch depiction of this subject, as well as Metsu’s slightly later adaptation, Elegant Lady Writing at Her Desk (c. 1662–1664, Leiden Collection). ^[8] Ter Borch’s model, his half-sister Gesina (also depicted in The Suitor’s Visit), is clearly absorbed in her writing, while Metsu’s writer stops mid-gesture as she lifts her quill from the ink well, turning to meet the viewer’s eye. ^[9] The narrative immediacy of those images seems qualitatively different from the motionless moment of Vermeer’s painting. Technical examination with x-radiography and infrared reflectography has clarified Vermeer’s process. He first painted the quill pen in an upright position—his writer, like Ter Borch’s, was actively engaged in writing—but he later altered the quill so it would rest at an angle as the writer pauses, lost in thought. ^[10]

One possible explanation for the woman’s striking pose is that A Lady Writing is a portrait. The letter-writing theme would have allowed Vermeer to achieve a convincing sense of naturalism that formal portraits often lack. Although no documentary evidence confirms that Vermeer painted portraits, certain compositional characteristics in this work seem to reinforce this hypothesis. He has posed the woman in the foreground of the painting, thereby enhancing her physical and psychological presence. Her distinctive features—a large forehead and a long, narrow nose—are portraitlike characteristics that resemble those of Study of a Young Woman (c. 1666–1667, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), and are not as idealized as those of women in his other genre scenes of the same period. Finally, her form is modeled with delicate brushstrokes and subtle nuances of color that articulate her features with unusual clarity.

The identity of the sitter has not been established. One possibility is that she is Vermeer’s wife, Catharina Bolnes. Born in 1631, she would have been in her early-to-mid thirties when Vermeer painted this work. Although it is difficult to judge the age of models in paintings, such an age does seem appropriate for this figure, and she does wear Catharina’s yellow jacket. ^[11] Her physical features, however, differ from those of the model for Woman Holding a Balance, who is likely Catharina Bolnes. ^[12]

Original entry by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., April 24, 2014.

Revised by Alexandra Libby to incorporate information from a technical examination.

December 9, 2019

The fabric support has a moderately fine weave. ^[15] It has been lined, and only fragments remain of the original tacking margins. The support was prepared with a warm gray ground, which extends onto the tacking margin on the right and lower edges. ^[16] Examination has not revealed evidence of an underdrawing or painted sketch, but Vermeer may have laid out the composition with white chalk, as seen in his The Art of Painting (c. 1666/1668, Kunsthistoriches Museum Wien, Gemäldegalerie).

Vermeer worked with a colored underpaint characterized by stronger contrasts of light and dark than the final paint and a rougher texture. The contrast of smoothly blended final paint over the vigorous underpaint creates a variety of textural and light effects. In the yellow jacket, for example, vigorous folds described in the underpaint were smoothed by fluid strokes, followed by rounded highlights touched into wet paint to form specular reflections on the fabric. Contours are softened by blending adjacent paint areas wet-into-wet, or by leaving a small area of ground or underpaint exposed along the edges of the forms. ^[17] Magnified examination of the paint surface, as well as x-radiography and infrared reflectography shows that Vermeer first depicted the pen in a more upright position. ^[18] This small change—from a hand actively engaged in writing to a quill that falls back loosely in the distracted writer’s hand—conveys a moment of stillness characteristic of Vermeer’s works.

A few flake losses exist, mostly on the edges. Small, regularly spaced holes along the left and right edges penetrate the paint and ground layer but do not align with the cusping pattern or appear to be tack holes from a dimensional change. There is some abrasion in the still life hanging on the wall, but overall the painting is in excellent condition. It was treated in 1935 by Louis de Wild. ^[19] In 1994 and 1995 the painting was treated again at the National Gallery of Art to remove De Wild’s varnish and inpainting, both of which had discolored considerably.

Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., Joanna Dunn, and Dina Anchin, based on conservation reports by David Bull, Melanie Gifford, Melissa Katz, and Kay Silberfeld

December 9, 2019