Woman Reading a Letter (detail)
by TERBORCH, Gerard, Oil on canvas
The standing woman, dressed in blue and yellow and fully illuminated, is the protagonist. The models who posed for this painting were probably members of the Terborch family. The woman reading the letter strongly resembles Terborch’s drawings of his sister Gesina. The boy was probably his brother Mozes. The dog lying on the stool in the foreground must have been Terborch’s own dog, since it figures frequently in his works.