A Young Woman Standing at a Virginal

Vermeer's A Young Woman Standing at a Virginal from around 1670-72 is one of his last paintings, depicting a woman at a keyboard instrument in a room decorated with two paintings—one of Cupid holding a card, the other a landscape. The painting's iconography has been interpreted as an allegory of faithful love, with the Cupid image (after a painting by Caesar van Everdingen) symbolizing devotion to a single lover. It hangs in the National Gallery alongside its probable pendant, A Young Woman Seated at a Virginal.

Vermeer's late technique shows slightly harder edges and a cooler palette than his middle-period works. The careful rendering of the virginal's painted lid, the blue chair upholstery, and the filtered daylight demonstrates his continued mastery of spatial light despite the somewhat stiffer handling.