The red brick front of a house fills the right side, its windows fitted with green and red shutters, and a woman sits sewing in its open doorway while two children kneel on the pavement by the bench outside. To the left, through an open passage, a woman bends over a barrel, and a vine climbs the whitewashed wall beside an arched doorway. Gabled roofs rise beyond under a cloudy sky. Johannes Vermeer painted these houses in Delft around 1658.

In 2015 Frans Grijzenhout of the University of Amsterdam used the town's 1667 register of quay dues, which records house widths to within 15 centimeters, to place the scene at today's Vlamingstraat 40–42. The house on the right belonged to Vermeer's widowed aunt, who sold tripe, which is why the passage beside it was called the Penspoort, or Tripe Gate. The Rijksmuseum adds that he first painted the door on the left closed, only later opening its shutters. The painting failed to sell at the Six family auction in Amsterdam in April 1921; Henry Deterding then bought it for 625,000 guilders and gave it to the Rijksmuseum that year.

Today's houses there date from the late 19th century; only the gate and passage on the right are still recognizable. It is in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.