VERMEER, Johannes
(b. 1632, Delft, d. 1675, Delft)

Officer with a Laughing Girl (detail)

c. 1657
Oil on canvas
Frick Collection, New York

The young woman is bathed in light, which streams in through the half open window to the left, and reflects itself from the cream-coloured background that is enhanced to the left by very thin glazes of slightly pinkish tonalities. Her face, exceptionally conveying expression - joy and laughter - appears framed in a kerchief and the collar of her dress. That part of the figure, especially, reveals itself as a symphony of luminosity, set off by the dark sleeves of the yellow jacket on which glittering highlights dance.