A Woman Reading a Letter by a Window Pieter de Hooch

De Hooch, who worked in Delft and later in Amsterdam, devoted his attention to the quiet, hard-working ordinary lives of Dutch citizens. His genre pieces and family portraits capture the poetic moments of everyday reality and are permeated with harmony and intimate tranquillity. His figures are often set in spaces that are open towards several directions, in compositions that unfailingly appear natural and real. His masterly handling of light and shade plays an important role in his paintings: here too, the light cast on the young woman absorbed in her reading conjures up a sense of the fleeting moment. The open window, one of the painter’s favourite motifs, leads our sight into the distance, creating a contrast between the dimly lit interior and the sundrenched city. The tower visible against the sky is that of Amsterdam’s West Church.