Woman reading a letter and a man at a window

Letter-reading scenes were among the most psychologically loaded subjects in Dutch Golden Age painting, as correspondence implied absent lovers, distant husbands at sea, or commercial transactions — all charged with suspense. De Hooch's version, showing a woman reading while a man turns toward the window, belongs to a tradition shared with Vermeer and Ter Borch. The man at the window may be a secondary figure or the letter's author, but his partial disengagement creates the sense of interrupted domestic time that De Hooch handled with particular sensitivity in his Delft years.

Light enters from the window at the right and falls obliquely across the room, illuminating the letter and the woman's face while leaving the man's turned figure in softer shadow. The tiled floor and whitewashed wall are painted with De Hooch's characteristic economy — suggesting texture through tone rather than laborious detail.