The Love Letter

Johannes Vermeer (Dutch, 1632–1675)

Date: c. 1669 - c. 1670
Medium: oil on canvas
Size: 17¼ × 15¼ in (44 × 38.5 cm)
Museum: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, accession SK-A-1595. See the museum’s record
Credit: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

Public domain image courtesy of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (Public Domain Mark).

Palette

Closest wall colors:

Fits these rooms

Hang it

Pick the furniture and a print size to see it to scale on your wall.

Where Print size

Print: 16 × 18¼ in, the whole painting on 16 × 20 in paper
Center: 58 in (147 cm) above the stair line

16 × 18¼ in portrait print (41 × 46 cm), centered 58 in above the stair line. Drawn to scale on a 12 × 8 ft wall.

Try it on your wall color

Default greige

Print it

No standard paper matches this painting’s proportions closely, so print it whole with a white border, or trim the edges to fill the paper.

Paper	Filling the paper	Printed whole	Frame	Frame with a 2 in mat	Frame with a 3 in mat	Sharpness
8 × 10 in	trims 8.6 %	8 × 9 in	8 × 10 in ready-made	12 × 14 in custom	14 × 16 in custom	1991 dpi, crisp up close
12 × 12 in	trims 12.5 %	10½ × 12 in	12 × 12 in ready-made	16 × 16 in ready-made	18 × 18 in custom	1515 dpi, crisp up close
11 × 14 in	trims 10.2 %	11 × 12½ in	11 × 14 in ready-made	15 × 18 in custom	17 × 20 in custom	1443 dpi, crisp up close
12 × 16 in	trims 14.3 %	12 × 13¾ in	12 × 16 in ready-made	16 × 20 in ready-made	18 × 22 in custom	1327 dpi, crisp up close
16 × 16 in	trims 12.5 %	14 × 16 in	16 × 16 in ready-made	20 × 20 in ready-made	22 × 22 in custom	1136 dpi, crisp up close
16 × 20 in	trims 8.6 %	16 × 18¼ in	16 × 20 in ready-made	20 × 24 in ready-made	22 × 26 in custom	993 dpi, crisp up close

Sharpness is worked out from the largest file the museum offers. Above 300 dpi a print holds up at arm’s length; 150 dpi is plenty for a picture seen from across a sofa.

Download

Free for any use, including commercial: this image is public domain (Public Domain Mark).

Thumbnail (WebP) 491 × 560 px from Room Paintings
Web image 739 × 843 px from Rijksmuseum
Print file 1,753 × 2,000 px from Rijksmuseum
Original file 15,934 × 18,183 px from Rijksmuseum
The museum’s record of this painting Rijksmuseum

Public domain image courtesy of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (Public Domain Mark). You may print, share, change and sell it without asking. Read what that means on our image license page, and how to get a good result in how to print a public-domain painting.