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.
Columbus's letter on the first voyage the length of the trip, claiming it took "thirty-three days" (which is roughly correct if measured from the Canaries, but it was seventy-one days since he left Spain itself; Columbus's letter leaves it ambiguous). Finally, his emphatic statement that he formally "took possession" of the islands for the Catholic monarchs, and left men (and a ship) at La Navidad, may have been emphasized to forestall any Portuguese claim. The explicit recipient of Columbus's Spanish letter was the "Escribano de Ración"—at that time, Luis de Santángel. An official position of the Crown of Aragon, the "Escribano de Ración" was the high