India, Sept. 19 -- The light of a soft winter sun illuminates the faces of two very different women.

One leans over a desk, writing a letter. The other, her maid, looks toward the window with an air of mild impatience. The light streaming in through a window picks out tiny details in this scene of seemingly mundane domesticity: a quietly chaotic painting on a wall, a piece of discarded parchment on the floor.

Painted between 1670 and 1672, Woman Writing a Letter with Her Maid is one of three epistolary works displayed side-by-side at The Frick Collection in New York, in its first show after a major, five-year renovation.

All three works are by the Dutch master Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), known best for A Girl with a Pearl Earring (16...