Mistress And Maid

Mistress And Maid
The story featured may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not always represent the views of the institutions, listed below, who have supplied the content.
Online Exhibit Girl Interrupted at her Music The Frick Collection
Online Exhibit Officer and Laughing Girl The Frick Collection
Online Exhibit Vermeer and Music The Frick Collection
Online Exhibit THE THREE SOLDIERS The Frick Collection
Vermeer’s complete works united: 36 paintings from 18 museums across 7
different countries
Mistress and Maid (ca. 1666−67) by Johannes Vermeer The Frick Collection
In this painting, Vermeer shows a young woman and her maid wondering about the arrival of a mysterious letter.
The mistress is interrupted from her own writing by the letter’s sudden appearance.
Her affluence is indicated by her elegant coiffure (it certainly is quite some hairstyle!)
the pearls adorning her hair, neck, and ears…
and her fur-trimmed yellow mantel. All the height of 17th Century fashion.
The mistress’s yellow satin jacket, known as either a jak or manteltje , was an informal item worn by middle- and upper-class women for warmth inside the home.
And the simple fact that she’s sitting down to write a letter proves the mistress’ was from a privileged position in society. Remember, very few people were educated enough to read and write.
She lays down her pen with the arrival of her maid…
who emerges from the shadows holding a letter.
The maid wears a simple brown wool bodice with an underlying chemisette. Very different from the richness (in more ways than one) of the clothes of her mistress.
She also wears a vibrant blue apron.
While sending and receiving love letters was a popular theme in Dutch art particularly after the middle of the century (who doesn’t love a good romance?), the note’s contents and the mistress’s response are impossible to interpret. This ambiguity, often found in Vermeer’s works, is part of the painting’s genius. It keeps us all in suspense, engrossed in a drama whose ending will never be revealed. Vermeer is teasing us to draw our conclusions, a wicked scandal or a tender love affair?
The darkened background, with its scarcely legible curtain, seems at first to be a departure from Vermeer’s typical sun-drenched interiors.
His masterful treatment of light is revealed, however, in the incredibly subtle depiction of a window, not visible in the room itself, but reflected in the glassware on the table.
This unseen source of light spotlights the women—especially the softly modeled profile and hand of the mistress—and fixes their gestures.
This exhibition is part of the Google Vermeer Project.

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Nan Willis is a wealthy young heiress who visits a fashionable seaside resort at which she is unknown. She is accompanied only by her maid, Susan, an envious woman, who bears her mistress no... Read all Nan Willis is a wealthy young heiress who visits a fashionable seaside resort at which she is unknown. She is accompanied only by her maid, Susan, an envious woman, who bears her mistress no great love. Bored by the even tenor of her life, Nan decides to seek adventure by changin... Read all Nan Willis is a wealthy young heiress who visits a fashionable seaside resort at which she is unknown. She is accompanied only by her maid, Susan, an envious woman, who bears her mistress no great love. Bored by the even tenor of her life, Nan decides to seek adventure by changing places with her maid, and thus escaping the restrictions of conventionality with which s... Read all
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by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most impor
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
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Oct 07, 2013

Perry Whitford

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Despite their poverty the three Misses Leaf, Joanna, Selina and Hilary, school-mistresses to a waning class of pupils in the small rural town of Stowbury, have no option but to hire a maid to assist with all their domestic duties. At the low cost of £3 per annum they acquire the services of Elizabeth Hand, an awkward and sullen but willing young girl of fifteen. Elizabeth comes to view Hilary Leaf as her true mistress. Though the youngest, Hilary engendered affection, 'there was a liveliness and
Despite their poverty the three Misses Leaf, Joanna, Selina and Hilary, school-mistresses to a waning class of pupils in the small rural town of Stowbury, have no option but to hire a maid to assist with all their domestic duties. At the low cost of £3 per annum they acquire the services of Elizabeth Hand, an awkward and sullen but willing young girl of fifteen. Elizabeth comes to view Hilary Leaf as her true mistress. Though the youngest, Hilary engendered affection, 'there was a liveliness and even briskness about her, as if the every day wine of her life had a spice of Champagniness, not frothiness but natural effervescence of spirit, meant to "cheer but not inebriate" a household.' Of the other two sisters, Johanna Leaf, the eldest, is in declining health, yet her personality remains sweetness itself, 'the unruffled peace of a soul which no worldly storms could disturb overmuch, for it had long since cast anchor in the world unseen.' Selina, nearing forty, once considered the beauty, is highly-strung and given to 'fits' and periods of bedridden illnesses. She alone treats Elizabeth with condescension and distance, though she calls on her aid to a greater degree than her siblings. Elizabeth becomes akin to a 'bower-maiden' of olden times for the admirable Hilary, who educates and improves her throughout a modest novel centered principally upon 'the great gulf that lies and ever must lie—not so much between mistress and servant, in their abstract relation—(and yet that is right, for the relation and authority are ordained of God)—but between the educated and the ignorant, the coarse and the refined.' Mistress and Maid is an unassuming domestic tale from the 19th century, not nearly as awash in piety and sentimentality as either I or the quotations I have used may appear to make it sound. Sure, there's some tears, but generally speaking the sisters and their charge are an earthy and entertaining group, despite the smallness of their world. Tensions arise through a feckless nephew and assorted love interests. Craik is fully aware of the slightness of her story, addressing the reader with several references to it along the way, e.g.: 'I misdoubt many will say I am writing about small, ridiculously small, things. Yet is not the whole of life made up of infinitesimally small things?' Yet the narrative voice is so soft and generous, so warm and welcoming that the chapters sailed on like a light craft on still waters. It's far from exciting, but I enjoyed its simple spell for the most part and will look to read another of the writer's works. p.s. the online version I read is riddled with spelling mistakes in virtually every chapter e.g. 'cut' instead of 'out', 'new' instead of 'now', and my favorite 'oven' for 'even'.
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Jul 30, 2013

Julia

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Although not compelling in the way that you absolutely must read the next page, this story is a touching and insightful tale of perseverance and sacrifice. The characters are truly human, albeit old fashioned in their values and roles, and we genuinely feel for them as they toil and triumph. A little gem of a story - highly recommend! :)

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This was such a darling piece of past literature. Certainly not flashy, nor was the story catching, but the characters were compelling and very Victorian. I enjoyed sinking for a few hours into a simpler but no less trying age.

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May 04, 2013

Susan

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I really liked this book. I had to skim a little bit over the saddest parts, but after reading the end, I went back to read them. It was very realistic, and made me count my blessings. It resolved things in a very satisfying way.

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Nov 01, 2011

Mary

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Buying a Kindle has enabled me to indulge my passion for Victorian novels and Mrs Craik wrote some of the very best.

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Fascinating, given its wild popularity among Civil War soldiers.

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Nov 10, 2013

Akash Malik

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If you are a romantic at heart and are looking for a realistic but sweet story, you have found the right book.

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Dinah Maria Craik (born Dinah Maria Mulock, also often credited as Miss Mulock or Mrs. Craik) was an English novelist and poet. She was born at Stoke-on-Trent and brought up in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire. After the death of her mother in 1845, Dinah Maria Mulock settled in London about 1846. She was determined to obtain a livelihood by her pen, and, beginning with fiction for children, adv
Dinah Maria Craik (born Dinah Maria Mulock, also often credited as Miss Mulock or Mrs. Craik) was an English novelist and poet. She was born at Stoke-on-Trent and brought up in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire. After the death of her mother in 1845, Dinah Maria Mulock settled in London about 1846. She was determined to obtain a livelihood by her pen, and, beginning with fiction for children, advanced steadily until placed in the front rank of the women novelists of her day. She is best known for the novel John Halifax, Gentleman (1856). She followed this with A Life for a Life (1859), which she considered to be the best of her novels, and several other works. She also published some poetry, narratives of tours in Ireland and Cornwall, and A Woman's Thoughts about Women (1858). She married George Lillie Craik a partner with Alexander Macmillan in the publishing house of Macmillan & Company, and nephew of George Lillie Craik, in 1864. They adopted a foundling baby girl, Dorothy, in 1869. At Shortlands, near Bromley, Kent, while in a period of preparation for Dorothy's wedding, she died of heart failure on 12 October 1887, aged 61. Her last words were reported to have been: "Oh, if I could live four weeks longer! but no matter, no matter!" Her final book, An Unknown Country , was published by Macmillan in 1887, the year of her death.
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Mistress and Maid Johannes Vermeer ca. 1666−67
The Frick Collection New York City, United States
Woman Writing a Letter, with her Maid Uses same medium
Girl Interrupted at Her Music Visually similar work
Portrait of a Woman Depicts same location
Woman Writing a Letter Depicts same object
Portrait of a Woman From same collection
The subject of writing and receiving letters, which recurs frequently in Vermeer ’s work, is given an exceptional sense of dramatic tension in this painting of two women arrested in some moment of mysterious crisis. The lack of final modeling in the mistress’ head and figure and the relatively plain background indicate that this late work by Vermeer was left unfinished. Nevertheless, the artist seldom if ever surpassed the subtly varied effects of light seen here as it gleams from the pearl jewelry , sparkles from the glass and silver objects on the table, and falls softly over the figures in their shadowy setting. Bought by Mr. Frick in 1919, the year of his death, this painting was his last purchase and joined Rembrandt ’s "Self-Portrait," Holbein’s "Sir Thomas More," Bellini’s "St. Francis," and Velázquez ’ "King Philip IV" among his favorite acquisitions.
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