Today, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden is presenting a new publication detailing the restoration of Johannes Vermeer’s Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window. Completed between 2017 and 2021, the restoration has fundamentally transformed the appearance of this iconic work. The spectacular removal of a later overpainting in the background of the painting brought to light the depiction of a god of love, which must now be linked to the figure of the letter-reading girl again as a picture within a picture. This suggests a new interpretation of the painting: the god of love functions as a meaningful commentary on the scene, which the viewer now clearly perceives as an amorous situation.

This publication presents the results of research and investigations that examine the restored painting from the perspective of the team of European and American institutions from the fields of restoration, natural sciences, art history, mathematics and IT that worked together on the four-year project. It is intended to contribute to an even more comprehensive description of Vermeer’s painting, to clarify the process of its creation and to make the Dresden decision to accept the later overpainting transparent and comprehensible to experts and the public.

Johannes Vermeer. Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window. Restoration and Studies in Painting Technique
In the series The Restored Masterpiece of the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Volume 9
Edited by Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Uta Neidhardt and Christoph Schölzel
144 pp, 222 col. ills.
Dresden (Sandstein Verlag) 2025
ISBN: 978-3-95498-798-6