The genius of Johannes Vermeer is on display as never before 

A young woman in a blue night jacket reads a letter that she holds up to her chest. The morning light glints on the metal tacks in her chairs. Her lips are slightly parted, as if she is murmuring the message aloud.

The intimacy of Johannes Vermeer’s domestic scenes can seem almost voyeuristic. Some of his figures look at you as if turning towards an intruder. Yet they are also tantalisingly inscrutable, glimpsed from a distance or sealed in private reveries. In “Woman in Blue Reading a Letter”, you see the light but not the window it is pouring through. You see the letter but not the words.