1672 (ca.), Johannes Vermeer, A Young Woman Standing at a Virginal -- National Gallery of Scotland (Edinburgh)
From the museum label:
A young woman turns to meet our gaze. Her fine silk dress and pearl necklace tell us that she is wealthy, as do the blue and white Delft tiles, the expensive, decorated keyboard instrument, and the richly framed paintings behind her. She is about to play the muselar, a type of virginal or harpsichord made only in northern Europe. One of the pictures shows Cupid, the god of love, alluding to the theme of fidelity.
Johannes Vermeer, who lived in Delft in South Holland, is one of the most celebrated Dutch painters of all time. Only some 36 of his paintings are known today. About a third of them depict young women playing music in calm domestic interiors, either alone or with others. As this compelling painting suggests, music was closely associated with love in the 17th-century Dutch Republic.
1672 (ca.), Johannes Vermeer, A Young Woman Standing at a Virginal -- National Gallery of Scotland (Edinburgh)
From the museum label:
A young woman turns to meet our gaze. Her fine silk dress and pearl necklace tell us that she is wealthy, as do the blue and white Delft tiles, the expensive, decorated keyboard instrument, and the richly framed paintings behind her. She is about to play the muselar, a type of virginal or harpsichord made only in northern Europe. One of the pictures shows Cupid, the god of love, alluding to the theme of fidelity.
Johannes Vermeer, who lived in Delft in South Holland, is one of the most celebrated Dutch painters of all time. Only some 36 of his paintings are known today. About a third of them depict young women playing music in calm domestic interiors, either alone or with others. As this compelling painting suggests, music was closely associated with love in the 17th-century Dutch Republic.