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Terborch painted a significant number of letter readers and writers. Depictions of this sort enjoyed immense popularity during this period. Since letter writing was primarily (though not exclusively) a leisure activity among the well-to-do it is not surprising that paintings of this theme were so prevalent during the decades in which the Dutch economy expanded greatly.
The Curiosity, completed around 1660, features three young women in an ornate interior. One sporting an ermine-trimmed jacket attentively writes a letter as another woman, identifiable as a maid because of her comparatively simple attire, peers inquisitively over her shoulder. To their right stands a young lady of extraordinary beauty and bearing. Her station and propriety are connoted not only by her luxurious garments but also by her long handkerchief. This accouterment functioned chiefly as a fashionable status symbol for upper-class women in the Dutch Republic.
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