The Love Letter
by OCHTERVELT, Jacob, Oil on canvas, 91 x 64 cm
The subject of this painting is a woman at her toilet, reading a letter that must be from a suitor. A maid threads a string of pearls through her mistress’s hair. Both a seated woman reading a letter and a maid dressing a young woman’s hair are motifs found in paintings of the early 1660s by Gerard Terborch.