Writing in her article, “
A God of Desire is Revealed in a Vermeer” in the arts section of the September 14, 2021 issue of The New York Times about the treatment of Vermeer’s “Girl Reading a Letter” by conservator Christoph Schölzel at the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Catherine Hickley notes that when the layer of overpaint was removed from the background to reveal a figure of cupid , it provided context for the long held idea that the girl is reading a love letter. It is now known what was behind the overpainting. It is still not known when the overpaint was added, by whom it was added, or why it was added.