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A Young Woman Writing a Letter
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A Young Woman Writing a Letter
Frans van Mieris(Leiden 1635 – 1681 Leiden)

ca. 1670
oil on panel
18.5 x 14.7 cm
signed on the edge of the table, lower left corner:“Fvan Mieris”
FM-124

How to cite
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “A Young Woman Writing a Letter” (2022). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed. Edited by
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Lara Yeager-Crasselt. New York, 2020–23. https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/(archived December 2023).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed by apermanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

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In this intimate candlelit scene, a young woman, seated in the privacy of her

Comparative Figuresbedchamber, leans over her writing desk to compose a letter. Wearing a white linen
cap and a fur-trimmed velvet jacket over a tight-fitting bodice, she responds to thetwo-page missive that lies opened on the small, foreground table. With a brass inkwellnear at hand, she carefully places the tip of her elegant quill pen at the top of a sheetof paper while steadying it with her other hand. The candlelight, domestic setting, andfaint smile animating her face leave little doubt that this correspondence is amorousin nature.[1]Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) painted this endearing scene around 1670, at a time,
relatively late in his career, when he made a number of paintings of young women
engaged in the letter-writing process.[2] Many of these epistolary scenes are
illuminated by candlelight, a light source that suggests both privacy andintimacy—although, in one instance, the flame of the candle also serves to melt theend of a red wax stick that the woman will use to seal her letter.[3] A Young Woman

Fig 1. Gerard ter Borch, Woman
Writing a Letter, 1655, oil on panel,
38.3 x 27.9 cm, Mauritshuis, The
Hague, inv. no. 797.

Writing a Letter is the only painting among these works that explicitly depicts thereceiving and subsequent writing of a letter, underscoring the sentiment of mutuality.
In Van Mieris’s other painted images, the letter to which the sitter responds is only
implied or, if visible, not given this central role. Here, he emphasized the physicalpresence of the letter in the foreground through the striking patterns of light andshadow created by its complex network of creases. These diagonally interlocking
folds, which the young woman’s correspondent made to prevent others from reading
its contents, signal the amorous nature of their exchange.[4] Adjacent to the letter is awooden sealing wax stamp, which is ready for the young woman’s use once she
finishes her reply, a subtle reference to the continuing correspondence between her
and her distant loved one.
The letter motif first appeared in Dutch painting in the 1630s, but it reached theheight of its popularity around mid-century with the innovative thematic and stylistic

Fig 2. Gabriel Metsu, Elegant Lady
Writing at Her Desk, ca. 1662–64, oil
on panel, 39.4 x 33.5 cm, The Leiden
Collection, New York, inv. no.
GM-110.

contributions of Gerard Ter Borch (1617–81).[5] The Deventer artist’s genre scenes ofupper-class men and women reading, writing, and dispatching letters in elegant
interiors reflected the taste for “modern” subject matter that was often associatedwith themes of love.[6] An important painting in this context is Ter Borch’s depictionof his half-sister, Gesina, deeply absorbed in a letter on the table before her (fig 1).
With his careful attention to such details as the oriental carpet pushed aside to clear
the writing surface, the open inkwell, and the graceful way in which she holds thequill pen, Ter Borch evoked a shared intimacy between subject and viewer in thistranquil scene.
Ter Borch’s letter writers provided an important model for Van Mieris as well as for

Fig 3. Frans van Mieris, A Young
Woman Writing a Letter, ca. 1670, oil
on panel, 18.5 x 14.5 cm, The Leiden
Collection, New York, inv. no.
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A Young Woman Writing a Letter
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several of his contemporaries in the 1660s and 1670s, including Gabriel Metsu(1629–67), Caspar Netscher (ca. 1639–84), and Johannes Vermeer (1632–75), each

FM-124, with frame approximating
original arched panel.

of whom also explored a range of the psychological and emotional reactions that arise
from the exchange of letters. In Gabriel Metsu’s Elegant Lady at Writing at Her Deskin The Leiden Collection, for example, the sitter, who has been interrupted fromwriting, holds her quill pen above the inkwell and, with a bemused expression, gazes
directly at the viewer (fig 2).[7] By involving the beholder in this narrative moment,
Metsu imbued his scene with a strikingly different—and more dramatic—character
than the private inner worlds depicted by Ter Borch and Van Mieris.
The great interest in portraying letter themes reflected the increasing use of letters as
a form of personal correspondence in the seventeenth century. While advances in the
postal system made the sending of letters more reliable in the Dutch Republic, letter
writing manuals, which first emerged in France, also helped to popularize epistolary
exchange.[8] Like Jean Puget de la Serre’s Le Secrétaire à la mode, one of the mostwidely read manuals in this period (published in French in 1630 and translated into
Dutch in 1651), these books provided models for composing various types ofcorrespondence, especially love letters. In his text, Puget de la Serre stressed theimportance of responding point by point to the letter that one has received.[9] The
thoughtful way that the woman in the Leiden Collection painting begins to compose
her letter—keeping her lover’s close by her side for reference—emphasizes themeasured and delicate approach that was required for this private task.
The intimate character of A Young Woman Writing a Letter is closely related to its
distinctive brushwork and muted palette of grays, browns, ochres, and purple.[10] Van
Mieris executed this painting with mostly fluid, thin brushstrokes, in some areas inonly one or two layers, and left the brown ground layer exposed in certain places toenhance the effect of shadow, as in the darker areas along the side of the woman’sneck and beneath the folded corners of the letter in the foreground. This unusualtechnique has led Quentin Buvelot to raise the possibility that the painting was notfinished, yet the careful and nuanced manner with which Van Mieris approached thecomposition—and the presence of the artist’s signature—indicates otherwise.[11] In
the flesh tones and sleeve of the woman’s jacket, for example, he layered hisbrushwork densely and modeled the folds of her sleeve wet-in-wet with a deep shadeof purple.[12] He executed the rest of composition more broadly and used therestrained palette to capture the warm tonalities of flickering candlelight in adarkened chamber. The intimacy of the scene would have also been enhanced by thepanel’s original arched shape (fig 3), a format favored by the artist that helped to
draw the subject closer to the beholder.[13]A Young Woman Writing a Letter’s muted colors and subtle lighting effects are© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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reminiscent of the technique of grisaille, a manner of painting that emphasizes themodeling of forms through light and shadow without the use of color.[14] Although
Van Mieris’s palette is more varied in this scene, he clearly intended the restrainedcolors to enhance the quiet, nocturnal setting and imbue the painting with a warm,
seductive quality.[15] Interestingly, scholars have not addressed the work’s nearmonochromatic palette, despite the fact that the earliest known references to thepainting in the eighteenth century characterize it as having been made “in ’t graauw”(“in gray”) or “camayeuse,” terms that were used to describe paintings inmonochrome.[16] As one of Van Mieris’s only works rendered in this manner, A Young
Woman Writing a Letter demonstrates his exceptional effort to seek new pictorial
solutions for the depiction of the letter theme, creating a tender, meditative moment
through the masterful effects of light and color.
That early collectors treasured this painting’s pictorial qualities is evident in its
remarkable provenance. After having been in the collection of the notable Dutch
collector Gerard Bicker van Zwieten II (1687–1753) in The Hague in the first part ofthe eighteenth century, A Young Woman Writing a Letter was acquired by aristocratic
Swiss collector and banker François Tronchin (1704–98).[17] Tronchin, who mingledwith elite intellectual and cultural circles in Geneva and Paris, had purchased thepainting by at least 1761, the year in which he compiled a handwritten inventory of
his collection.[18] In 1770, he sold the painting, together with ninety-four other works
from his collection, to Empress Catherine the Great of Russia (1729–96).[19] Van
Mieris’s painting remained in the imperial palace in St. Petersburg until the Russian
Revolution in 1917, at which point it was transferred to the State Hermitage Museum
until its eventual sale in 1929.[20] Van Mieris’s small masterpiece subsequently passed
through multiple private hands before being was acquired by The Leiden Collection
in 2021.[21]- Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 2022

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Endnotes
1. Faintly visible in the background is a bed with its drapery pulled aside. As with most painted letters, thetiny script depicted by Frans van Mieris on this letter is illegible. For the practices of letter writing anddepictions of the exchange of love letters in this period, see Peter C. Sutton, “Love Letters: Dutch Genre
Paintings in the Age of Vermeer,” and Ann Jensen Adams, “Disciplining the Hand, Disciplining theHeart: Letter Writing Paintings and Practices in Seventeenth-Century Holland,” both in Love Letters:
Dutch Genre Painting in the Age of Vermeer, ed. Peter C. Sutton, Lisa Vergara, and Ann Jensen Adams(Exh. cat. Greenwich, Conn., Bruce Museum of Arts and Sciences; Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland)(New Haven, 2003), 14–49 and 63–76; and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Pen to Paper,” in Vermeer and theMasters of Dutch Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry, ed. Adriaan E. Waiboer, Blaise Ducos, andArthur K. Wheelock Jr. (Exh. cat. Paris, Louvre Museum; Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland;
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art) (New Haven, 2017), 122–27. For a similar interpretation of
the letter theme as amorous exchange or temptation, see Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris the Elder(1635–1681) (Doornspijk, 1981), 1: 111–13.
2. Van Mieris treated the letter theme in six paintings and one drawing beginning in the early 1660s until
about 1680. For the dating of the Leiden Collection work, as well as his other letter scenes, see Otto
Naumann, Frans van Mieris the Elder (1635–1681) (Doornspijk, 1981), 1: 78–79, 111, 2: 96, nos. 82,
83, 92, 118. Quentin Buvelot has suggested a date between ca. 1670 and 1680 for the Leiden Collection
painting; Quentin Buvelot et al., Frans van Mieris 1635–1681 (Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis;
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art) (Zwolle, 2005), 189–94, esp. 192. Several of Van Mieris’s
paintings likely treat the letter theme as a historical subject, as does Woman with a Lapdog,
Accompanied by a Maidservant (Probably Bathsheba with King David’s Letter), 1680, The Leiden
Collection. For the drawing, Woman, Reading by Candlelight, ca. 1660–62, black chalk on vellum, 205 x
170 mm, private collection, United States, see Quentin Buvelot et al., Frans van Mieris 1635–1681 (Exh.
cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis; Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art) (Zwolle, 2005), 194, fig. 42c.
3. Frans van Mieris, A Woman Sealing a Letter by Candlelight, 1667, oil on panel (arched top), 27 x 20 cm,
private collection. See http://rkd.nl/explore/images/252211.
4. Envelopes were used rarely in the seventeenth century, making the folding of a letter to maintain one’s
privacy of paramount importance.
5. Amsterdam and Haarlem artists in the early to mid-1630s, including Dirck Hals (1591–1656), Pieter
Codde (1599–1678), and Willem Duyster (1599–1635), portrayed women in domestic interiors readingor holding letters, sometimes by candlelight. For the more widespread depiction of the letter motif,
including in portraits and history scenes, see Sabine Schulze, ed., Leselust: Niederländische Malerei vonRembrandt bis Vermeer (Exh. cat. Frankfurt, Schirn Kunsthalle) (Frankfurt, 1993).
6. See Peter C. Sutton, “Love Letters: Dutch Genre Paintings in the Age of Vermeer,” in Love Letters:
Dutch Genre Painting in the Age of Vermeer, ed. Peter C. Sutton, Lisa Vergara, and Ann Jensen Adams© 2024 The Leiden Collection

A Young Woman Writing a Letter
Page 7 of 13(Exh. cat. Greenwich, Conn., Bruce Museum of Arts and Sciences; Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland)(New Haven, 2003), 17–21; Adriaan E. Waiboer, “Corresponding Love,” and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.,“Pen to Paper,” both in Vermeer and the Masters of Dutch Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry, ed.
Adriaan E. Waiboer, Blaise Ducos, and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. (Exh. cat. Paris, Louvre Museum;
Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland; Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art) (New Haven, 2017),
114–21 and 122–27; and Alison McNeil Kettering, “Gerard ter Borch and the Modern Manner,” inGerard ter Borch, ed. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. (Exh. cat. Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art;
Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts) (New Haven, 2004), 20–29.
7. See the entry by Adriaan Waiboer on Elegant Lady at Her Writing Desk in this catalogue; and Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr., “Pen to Paper,” in Adriaan E. Waiboer, Blaise Ducos, and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. eds.,
Vermeer and the Masters of Dutch Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry (Exh. cat. Paris, Louvre
Museum; Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland; Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art) (New Haven,2017), 123–24. Both authors have argued that this work is a portrait and not just a genre scene.
8. The writing of personal correspondence developed in France among the upper classes as “a sign ofcivility and sociability.” Letter-writing practices gradually became codified, and letter-writing manuals
emerged as a way of providing standard form and guidance to writers. The letter also became aprominent theme in contemporary emblem books, including those by Otto Vaenius, Roemer Visscher,
Jacob Cats, and Jan Harmensz. Krul. See Peter C. Sutton, “Love Letters: Dutch Genre Paintings in theAge of Vermeer;” in Love Letters: Dutch Genre Painting in the Age of Vermeer, ed. Peter C. Sutton, Lisa
Vergara, and Ann Jensen Adams (Exh. cat. Greenwich, Conn., Bruce Museum of Arts and Sciences;
Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland) (New Haven, 2003), 26–43; Marcel Bax, “Epistolary Presentation
Rituals, Face-Work, Politeness and Ritual Display in Early Modern Dutch Letter-Writing,” in Historical(Im)politeness, ed. Jonathan Culpeper and Dániel Kádár (Bern, 2011), 37–87.
9. Jean Puget de la Serre’s Le Secrétaire à la mode was reprinted in at least thirty editions between 1643
and 1664; it was translated into Dutch as Fatsoenlicke zend-brief-schryver in 1651. Peter C. Sutton,“Love Letters: Dutch Genre Paintings in the Age of Vermeer,” in Love Letters: Dutch Genre Painting in
the Age of Vermeer, ed. Peter C. Sutton, Lisa Vergara, and Ann Jensen Adams (Exh. cat. Greenwich,Conn., Bruce Museum of Arts and Sciences; Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland) (New Haven, 2003),
32–33.
10. Van Mieris’s palette likely included brown earth pigments such as burnt umber, light ochre, warm redsienna, carbon black, and lead white, as well as the possible use of red lake in the woman’s clothing. His
broader, fluid handling is a departure from the “slick and hard qualities” and “porcelain-likesmoothness” that Otto Naumann ascribes to Van Mieris’s works from the 1670s and 1680s. Otto
Naumann, Frans van Mieris the Elder (1635–1681) (Doornspijk, 1981), 1: 110–11. These visualobservations have been supported by technical examination, including x-radiography and infrared
imaging, performed by Simon Howell and Nancy Wade from Shepherd Conservation in 2021. See thetechnical examination report, November 2021, The Leiden Collection archives.
11. Quentin Buvelot made this suggestion in light of the painting’s broad handling and “little elaborated© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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detail.” See Quentin Buvelot et al., Frans van Mieris 1635–1681 (Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis;
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art) (Zwolle, 2005), 192. Other technical observations support
the conclusion that Van Mieris considered the painting finished. Infrared imaging, for example, showsthat he defined certain contours of the woman’s facial features with fine lines using a brush with dark
pigment, namely along the bridge of her nose and line of her lips. Infrared imaging also revealed a shapein the area behind the candle, which may indicate that Van Mieris originally depicted the woman
reaching toward the candle, possibly to put out the flame or melt the sealing wax, and later changed his
mind. See the technical examination report, November 2021, The Leiden Collection archives.
12. The flesh tones appear to have been more fully resolved and show a greater degree of modeling. See thetechnical examination report, November 2021, The Leiden Collection archives.
13. The panel’s current rectangular shape is the result of two small triangular oak fillets that were later
added to the upper corners. X-ray images show the original shape of the panel edges as curved, a format
that is consistent with a number of paintings in Van Mieris’s oeuvre. He seems to have favored anarched format for this subject matter in particular, as he executed each of his other paintings of letter
writers on arched panels, with the exception being the Letter Writer, 1680 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam).
The Leiden Collection painting has been newly framed to reflect and preserve its original format (seefig 3).
Although Van Mieris often made format changes to his paintings (see the entry by Quentin Buvelot on
the Death of Lucretia in The Leiden Collection in this catalogue), the oak fillets in this instance areunlikely to have been added by the artist himself. Their addition does not revise or add to thecomposition as with other examples, but rather takes away from the focus on the letter writer and theintimacy of the candlelight scene. Nevertheless, the additions were likely made early in the painting’s
history, since all sides of the panel are beveled and the oak appears to be of a similar age.
Dendrochronology was performed on the main panel, but the composition of the fillets was not suitablefor further examination or analysis. I would like to express my thanks to Simon Howell and Ian Tyers
for sharing their insights on the panel with me. See also Quentin Buvelot and Otto Naumann, “Format
Changes by Frans van Mieris the Elder,” Burlington Magazine 150 (February 2008): 102–4.
14. Painting in grisaille was also referred to as painting “in black and white,” though artists could introduce
other monochromatic color palettes to achieve different effects, such as painting in shades of brown, or
brunaille. For the broader tradition of working in grisaille, see Lelia Packer and Jennifer Swilka,
Monochrome: Painting in Black and White (Exh. cat. London, National Gallery; Düsseldorf, Museum
Kunstpalast) (London, 2017).
15. Van Mieris pursued similar lighting effects in his drawings executed on vellum to achieve a richer andmore evocative character for his night scenes. See, for example, The Lovers, ca. 1657–58, black chalkon vellum, 22 x 18.8 cm, Paris, Institute Néerlandais, Frits Lugt Collection; and Woman, Reading by
Candlelight, as cited in note 2. I would like to thank Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. for bringing this point to
my attention.
16. The term grisaille came into use in the seventeenth century, though contemporaries often used “grau” or© 2024 The Leiden Collection

A Young Woman Writing a Letter
Page 9 of 13“in ’t graauw” to describe paintings executed in a monochromatic manner. The earliest description of A
Young Woman Writing a Letter as having been painted “in ’t graauw” appears in the catalogue of the
Bicker van Zwieten sale in 1741 (see Provenance). A handwritten notation in François Tronchin’s
Catalogue des tableaux du cabinet de M. Tronchin, conseiller d’Etat à Genève from 1765 mentions thepainting (and its pendant, see note 17 below) as “camayeuse” (monochromatic). The painting is similarly
described as “en Camayeu” in the early handwritten catalogue of paintings from the Hermitage: Ernstvon Munich, Catalogue des tableaux qui se trouve dans les Galeries et dans les Cabinets du Palais Imperialde St-Pétersbourg, St. Petersburg, 1773–85, no. 720. Subsequent catalogues in the nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries describe the painting as “grisaille d’un ton brunâtre.”
17. A Young Woman Writing a Letter’s provenance in the Bicker van Zwieten collection has been doubted in
the past, but recent research into the painting’s subsequent history in the late eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries strongly suggests that this early provenance is correct. The painting was long associated with its
so-called pendant, a grisaille version of Frans van Mieris’s Self-Portrait of the Artist, with a Cittern, 1674,
oil on canvas, 17.5 x 14 cm, National Gallery, London, executed by his son, Jan van Mieris (1660–90).
Although the paintings were not likely to have ever been true pendants, they were sold together in the
Bicker van Zwieten sale in 1741, and they appeared together again in François Tronchin’s collection in
1765. They were acquired by Catherine the Great (1729–96) in 1770 and were only separated following
their respective sales from the Hermitage in 1929. Jan van Mieris’s painting is presently in a private
collection. I would like to thank Otto Naumann for sharing his observations on the relationship between
the two paintings. For the so-called pendant, see Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris the Elder (1635–1681)(Doornspijk, 1981), 2: no. D97; and Margreet van der Hut, Jan van Mieris (1660–1690): His Life andWork (Zaandijk, 2021), no. 21.
For Tronchin, who likely started collecting in the 1740s, a period that coincided with his entrée into theParisian cultural scene and following his travels in France, England, and Holland, see Renée Loche,“François Tronchin,” in L’Age d’or flamand et hollandaise: Collections de Catherine II Muséee del’Ermitage, Saint-Pétersbourg (Exh. cat. Dijon, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon) (Dijon, 1993), 43–48.
18. The handwritten inventory of Tronchin’s collection, kept in the Archives de la maison ducale deCarlsruhe, was first published by Michel N. Bensovich, “Les collections de tableaux du conseiller
François Tronchin et le Musée de l’Ermitage,” Genava: Revue d’histoire de l’art et l’archéologie (January
1953): 25–51.
19. The sale was mediated by Denis Diderot (1713–84) and Prince Dmitry Golitsyn (1721–93). For
Tronchin’s sale of the collection to Catherine, see Renée Loche, “François Tronchin,” in L’Age d’or
flamand et hollandaise: Collections de Catherine II Musée de l’Ermitage, Saint-Pétersbourg (Exh. cat.
Dijon, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon) (Dijon, 1993), 44–48. The painting is first recorded in theunpublished inventory of the collections of the imperial palace in 1773, compiled by Ernst von Munich.
20. I am grateful to Irina Sokolova, curator of Dutch and Flemish paintings at the Hermitage, for her kindassistance in helping me with the provenance of the painting in Russia. Correspondence dated 5
September 2021. See References for the documentation of the painting in the catalogues of the© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Hermitage from 1773 through at least 1909. Attempts to trace the painting after its sale from theHermitage in 1929 were unsuccessful. See Elena Solomakha, ed., The State Hermitage Museum Sales
1929: Archival Documents, St. Petersburg, 2014, 2: no. 14, 211.
21. See Provenance.

Provenance
Gerard Bicker van Zwieten II (1687–1753), The Hague (his sale, The Hague, 12 April 1741, no. 65 [toRottermond]).[1]François Tronchin (1704–98), Geneva, by 1761 (to Catherine the Great).
Catherine the Great (1729–96), Empress of Russia, St. Petersburg, 1770; by descent to her son, Paul I(Pavel Petrovich) (1754–1801), Emperor of Russia; Imperial Gallery of the Hermitage Museum; State
Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, until being sold in 1929.[2][D. Katz, Dieren, 1938.]
Frans Joseph ten Bos (1878–1958), Almelo (his sale, Paul Brandt, Amsterdam, 24 June 1959, no. 14 [toOrtman for 6,000 guilders]).
(Sale, Christie’s, Amsterdam, 13 November 1995, no. 148 [for 80,500 guilders].)
Rémy Knafou (b. 1948), Paris, by 2003.
[Johnny Van Haeften, Ltd., London.]From whom acquired by the present owner in 2021.

Provenance Notes

1. Frans van Mieris’s Death of Lucretia, now in The Leiden Collection, was also formerly in the collectionof Gerard Bicker van Zwieten II.
2. Gerrit Dou’s Herring Seller and Boy, now in The Leiden Collection, was also formerly in the collectionof Catherine the Great.

Exhibition History
Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, “Love Letters: Dutch Genre Painting in the Age of Vermeer,” 1
October–31 December 2003; Greenwich, Conn., Bruce Museum of Arts and Sciences, 31 January–2
May 2004, no. 23 [lent by private collection, France].
San Diego, Timken Museum of Art, “Exchanging Words: Women and Letters in Seventeenth-Century© 2024 The Leiden Collection

A Young Woman Writing a Letter
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Dutch Genre Painting,” 21 September–31 December 2022 [lent by the present owner].

References
Hoet, Gerard. Catalogus of naamlyst van schilderyen, met derzelver pryzen, zedert een langen reeks vanjaaren zoo. The Hague, 1752, 2: 16, no. 63.
Tronchin, François. Catalogue des tableaux du cabinet de M. Tronchin, conseiller d’Etat à Genève.
Geneva, 1765, 43.
Von Munich, Ernst. Catalogue raisonné des tableaux qui se trouve dans les Galeries et dans les Cabinets
du Palais Imperial de St-Pétersbourg commencé en 1773 et continué jusqu’en 1785. Manuscript, 3 vols.
Hermitage Archives, St. Petersburg, 1773–85, fund 1, opis VI-A, delo 85, no. 720.
Labensky, F.I. Каталог картинам, хранящимся в Императорской Галерее Эрмитажа [Catalogueof Paintings Kept in the Imperial Gallery of the Hermitage]. Manuscript, 3 vols. Hermitage Archives, St.
Petersburg, 1797, fund 1, opis VI-A, delo 87, no. 1954.
Labensky, F.I. Livret de la Galerie Impériale de l’Hermitage de Saint-Pétersbourg: Contenant l’explication
des tableaux qui la composent, avec de courtes notices sur les autres objets d’art ou de curiosité qui y sont
exposés. St. Petersburg, 1838, 309, no. 40.
Viardot, Louis. Les musées d’Allemagne et de Russie: Guide et memento de l’artiste et du voyageur faisantsuite aux musées d’Italie, d’Espagne, d’Angleterre et de Belgique. Paris, 1844, 445.
Hermitage Museum. Опись картин и плафонов, состоящих в заведовании II отд. Императорского
Эрмитажа [Inventory of Paintings and Plafonds, Which Are in the II Department of the Imperial
Gallery of the Hermitage]. Hermitage Archives, St. Petersburg, 1859–1929, fund 1, opis VI-B, delo 1,
no. 3716.
Hermitage Museum. Ermitage Impérial: Catalogue de la galerie des tableaux. St. Petersburg, 1863, 193,
no. 920 [reprinted in 1887; 1902–16].
Waagen, Gustav Friedrich. Die Gemäldesammlung in der Kaiserlichen Eremitage zu St. Petersburg nebst
Bemerkungen über andere dortige Kunstsammlungen. 2nd ed. St. Petersburg, 1870, 203, no. 920.
Von Gower, Robert. The Figure Painters of Holland. London, 1880, 114.
Von Koehne, Bernhard Karl. Ermitage Impérial: Catalogue de la galerie des tableaux. Vol. 2, Les écoles
germaniques. 2nd ed. St. Petersburg, 1885, 176, no. 920.
Somof, A. Ermitage Impérial: Catalogue de la galerie des tableaux. Vol. 2, Écoles néerlandaises et école
allemande. 3rd ed. St. Petersburg, 1895, 206, no. 920.
Somof, A. Ermitage Impérial: Catalogue de la galerie des tableaux. Vol. 2, Écoles néerlandaises et école
allemande. St. Petersburg, 1901, 234, no. 920.
Somof, A. Императорскiй Эрмитажъ. Каталог Картинной Галереи. Vol. 2, нидерландскaя инѣмецкaя живопись [The Imperial Hermitage: Catalogue of the Picture Gallery. Vol. 2, Netherlandish© 2024 The Leiden Collection

A Young Woman Writing a Letter
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and German Paintings]. St. Petersburg, 1902, 296, no. 920.
Williamson, George C., ed. Bryan’s Dictionary of Painters and Engravers. Rev. ed. London, 1904, 3:
337.
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A Young Woman Writing a Letter
Page 13 of 13

Technical Summary
The painting is on an oak-panel support, likely from the area of southern Germany and northeasternFrance.[1] Dendrochronology indicates the tree was felled sometime after about 1539, though as the panel islikely part of a larger board, it is not possible at this time to know a more precise date of manufacture. The
panel, originally arch-topped, was cut down in the past along the top edge, and two small triangular additions
were affixed in the top corners to convert the painting to its present rectangular format. The painting iscurrently framed to approximate the original format, though no modifications were made to the cut-down
panel. The verso has original bevels on four sides to accommodate a frame.
The painting has an overall beige or warm light-brown ground. This ground layer likely contains lead white,as a radio-opaque material is seen within the grooves of the vertical wood grain. Parallel sweeps near thecenter of the composition visible in both the X-radiograph and infrared (IR) photograph may be evidence ofa priming knife or other tool used to apply the ground. In the IR photo, lines visible on the figure’s nose andmouth suggest the artist may have drawn in some important contours, and close examination suggests he may
have used earth pigments to block in and begin to model the forms. The composition was carefully planned,
and reserves are seen around the candle, ink well, the figure’s hat, and the creased letter in the foreground.
There is one possible change in the composition visible in the IR photo: a form extending from the figure’s
right shoulder to the candle’s flame may indicate that the artist initially planned for her to reach out toward
the flame, perhaps to snuff it. The final paint layers, which employ a relatively restricted palette, are thin andgestural, though certain areas, like the figure’s flesh, are more densely worked up and refined.
The condition of the painting is very good. There are small, scattered paint losses around the painting’s edges
and in areas of the background, such as in the bedhanging on the right, and there are areas of abrasion along
the bottom edge. These have all been retouched in the past. Increased transparency of the ground and paintlayers, a natural sign of ageing, makes the grain of the wood panel visible as slightly darkened verticalstriations. A varnish that covers the painting overall is slightly discolored, and it leaves the darker passages ofpaint slightly unsaturated.
– Gerrit Albertson, 2022

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. This technical summary was written from an examination report by Simon Howell and Nancy Wade ofShepherd Conservation in London, dated November 2, 2021. The report includes an x-radiograph,infrared photograph, and a dendrochronological report made by Ian Tyers. The painting was not
examined by the author.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection