Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid at least a degree of intimacy between the two. The painting visits many of Vermeer's usual painterly motifs; in particular his obsession with the inside/outside axis of interior spaces, and through his description of the tiled floor as well as the verticals of the dresses, window frame and back wall painting, his interest in geometry and abstract form. Vermeer had experimented with this painterly device earlier in his career, notably in his "View of Delft", "The Lacemaker" and "The Art of Painting". "Lady Writing" was stolen on 27 April 1974, along with a Goya, two Gainsboroughs and three Rubens from
The Pianist (memoir) The Pianist (memoir) The Pianist is a memoir by the Polish-Jewish pianist and composer Władysław Szpilman in which he describes his life in Warsaw in occupied Poland during World War II. After being forced with his family to live in the Warsaw ghetto, Szpilman manages to avoid deportation to the Treblinka extermination camp, and from his hiding places around the city witnesses the Warsaw ghetto uprising in 1943 and the Warsaw uprising (the rebellion by the Polish resistance) the following year. He survives in the ruined city with the help of friends and strangers, including Wilm Hosenfeld, a German army