New York’s Frick Collection is unveiling a uniquely intimate exhibition, Vermeer’s Love Letters, which, until August 31, 2025, presents three of Johannes Vermeer’s rare epistolary paintings together for the first time. Curators Robert Fauci and Aimee Ng have staged a silent drama that unfolds through sealed letters and coded glances.

At the heart of the trio is The Love Letter from Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum (circa 1669–70). The scene depicts a maid discreetly delivering a sealed missive to her mistress, who has paused her lute practice. Symbolic motifs—slippers, a sealed envelope, and a stormy seascape painting—quietly underscore themes of secrecy, desire, and longing.

Complementing it is the Frick’s own Mistress and Maid (1664–67), the final Vermeer acquired by Henry Clay Frick. Here, the maid arrives with a return letter. The mistress, her pen poised, reveals inner turmoil: anticipation, hesitation, or excitement—all conveyed through her expression and fine domestic details.

The narrative culminates in Dublin’s Woman Writing a Letter with her Maid (1670–72), on loan from the National Gallery of Ireland. The mistress writes, and her maid gazes out the window—perhaps contemplating her own romance. A discarded sealing wax on the floor hints at past correspondence.

This compact exhibition is layered with implicit stories: the interplay of social class, the invisibility of the male figure, and the emotional power of the written word. Letter-writing served as a conduit for discreet courtship, often mediated by the servant—who becomes both confidante and silent collaborator. Contemporary viewers may recognize echoes of modern courtship: anticipation of a reply and unspoken communication.

Through these three scenes, Vermeer invites us to imagine entire relationships built on silence and paper. The exhibition reminds us that, centuries ago, sealed love letters and the servants who carried them wove the fabric of intimate lives—an epistolary art now immortalized in paint and quietly revealed in a newly reopened Frick Gallery.