In Mr. Frick's day, Rembrandt was the most highly regarded Dutch old master. In our time, he has been supplanted by Vermeer. In place of Rembrandt's bombastic splendor and unrestrained emotions, Vermeer offered images of puritanical order and quiet harmony. Each age has its own aesthetic needs, it seems.This small picture presents the familiar components of a classic Vermeer: a man and a woman seen sharing a pleasant moment alone, in a comfortable interior flooded with golden light, and--you can almost feel it--cool air. Whatever the nature of the human exchange depicted here, it soon seems obvious that the real subject of the picture is light--the intangible light shown bursting in through the open window, breaking up reflections in the leaded panes, muffled through the curtains, caressing the soft plaster wall, lingering sporadically on glowing fabrics, sparkling glass, or the soft expanse of the vellum map (which depicts Holland, west at the top). But the light soon recedes into dark corners and will soon accent the young woman's beguiling face and soft kerchief differently. In this subtle fashion, Vermeer makes light a metaphor for time, and reminds us ever so gently of its inevitable consequences. Fortunate are we to have been permitted to eavesdrop on this golden moment.A few feet to your right hangs another work by Vermeer--the "Girl Interrupted at Her Music"--acquired by Mr. Frick in 1901. It was his first work by this artist, once called "the Sphinx of Delft."