The Letter

A young woman in a pink gown sits reading a letter in a dim room, while a servant in a green jacket and head cloth stands at a table beside her. A gentleman in a tricorn hat watches from the right, and an older woman dozes at left beneath a line of drying linen.

Look closer: A small white dog sits near the girl at the lower right, partly hidden by the chair.

Artist

Pietro Longhi (Pietro Falca)

Date

1746

Medium

Oil on canvas

Source

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Size

3085 × 3795 px

Credit (appreciated, not required for public-domain works): The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Frederick C. Hewitt Fund, 1912