Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid painting's canvas was almost certainly cut from the same bolt used for "Woman with a Lute". "Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid" is the first of the artist's experiments with centrifugal composition; where the focus is not only from the centre of the canvas. In addition, it is his third work in which the drama and dynamic is not centred on a single figure. The maid is shown standing in the mid-ground, behind her lady, with her hands crossed and waiting for the letter to be completed. The positions of their bodies indicate that the two women are disconnected.
Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid to international art thieves. According to a RTÉ report, Cahill's taste in art extended only to "cheery scenes like the cheap print in his living room of swans on a river, but he believed the stolen masterpieces would bring him a fortune." The painting was eventually recovered during an August 1993 exchange at Antwerp airport which turned out to be a sting operation organised by the Irish police. It had already been donated "in absentia" to the National Gallery in Dublin. Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid is a painting by the