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The Musician (1662). Bartholomeus van der Helst (Dutch, 1613-1670). Oil on canvas. MMOA.
The woman tunes a theorbo-lute, and a viola da gamba rests in front of her. Some scholars have considered the picture to be an allegory or personification of music, others as a genre scene similar to Vermeer’s Woman with a Lute near a Window. The artist’s wife, Anna du Pire, might have served as a model for the Musician.
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A Young Woman Seated Drawing (c.1655-60). Gabriel Metsu (Dutch, 1629-1667). Oil on panel. National Gallery, London.
This painting shows an artist’s studio. On the table is a bust of a woman and underneath an engraving by Lucas Vorsterman after Gerard Seghers’s painting ‘Christ at the Column before the Flagellation’ (Ghent, St Michael’s). The scene illustrates the early stage of an artist’s training when the pupil has to practise drawing after sculptures and prints.
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The Procuress (1622). Dirck van Baburen (Dutch, 1590 to 1595–1624). Oil on canvas. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Baburen, influenced by Caravaggio and his followers, specialized in close-up views of large, half-length figures, solidly modeled with emphatic contrasts of light and shadow. Here, an amorous suitor barters for the favors of a cheerful young woman. The lute, symbol of love, occupies the center of the composition; the gestures of the hands that surround it tell the painting’s story.
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Vanuit de coulissen: A Dancing Couple. Kees Maks (Dutch, 1876-1967). Oil on canvas.
Maks was a pupil of G.H. Breitner, which can be traced in the bold, robust visual arrangement of his paintings. He divided his time between Amsterdam and Paris and mainly painted scenes from the circus and theatre in rich tones and extreme contrasts of light and shade.
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The Repentant Magdalen (ca. 1620s). Peter Wtewael (Dutch, 1596–1660). Oil on panel. Joslyn Art Museum.
Wtewael’s portrayal includes Mary Magdalen’s conventional attributes — abundant red hair (with which she dried Christ’s feet), a jar of unguent (used to anoint the body of Christ), and costly robes. The book and skull symbolize salvation and death, respectively.
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Woman Reading a Letter (1664). Pieter de Hooch (Dutch, 1629–1684). Oil on canvas. Szemuveszeti Muzeum, Budapest.
De Hooch portrays household tasks and daily activities, like reading, of simple women at home. The sunlight streaming through the window suggests early afternoon. The young woman sitting in a corner of the room reads. The atmosphere of intimacy is absolute, emanating alike from the lady and the objects included in the composition.
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The Love Letter (early 1670s). Jacob Ochtervelt (Dutch, 1634–1682). Oil on canvas. MMOA, New York.
Ochtervelt was a co-pupil of Pieter de Hooch under Nicolaas Bercham in Haarlem. This typical scene of elegant domestic life was painted around 1670, when Ochtervelt was strongly influenced by Gerard ter Borch.
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Merry Company (1630). Judith Leyster (Dutch, 1609-1660). Oil on canvas. Louvre Museum, Paris.
Leyster highlighted the libidinous, mood-enhancing properties of music, often paired with drink, in her tavern scenes. In “Merry Company” young men (including the fiddler in Leyster’s self-portrait) get good and tipsy.
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Two Boys Singing (c.1625). Frans Hals (Dutch, 1580-1666). Oil on canvas, Staatliche Museen, Kassel.
The boys sing from an opened musical score, beating the rhythm with their hands, while the older one holds a lute in his left hand. Their expressions are realistic, although more typified than portrait-like.
The decorative feathered beret may be interpreted as a symbol. “A feather on one’s head indicates that one’s sensitivities are as easily moved as the feather by the light breeze.”
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Woman Writing A Letter (c.1655). Gerrit ter Borch (Dutch, 1617-1681). Oil on wood. Mauritshuis Royal Picture Gallery, Hague, Netherlands.
His focus on interior painting dates from 1645, when he began to paint elegantly dressed figures. Ter Borch demonstrates his skill in reproducing the textures of different materials and his ability to focus the viewer’s attention on the psychology of his sitters.
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Woman Playing the Guitar (circa 1624). Gerard van Honthorst (Dutch, 1590–1656). Oil on canvas. Louvre Museum.
Van Honthorst first studied under Abraham Bloemaert in Utrecht. In about 1610 he moved to Italy, where he had leading nobles as patrons and assimilated Caravaggio’s realism and dramatic use of artificial light into a personal idiom.
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Girl in Hyde Park Sun. Isaac Lazarus Israëls (Dutch, 1865–1934). Oil on canvas.
From 1913 to 1915 Israëls stayed in London on and off where he hired a workshop and temporarily lived in a hotel. The war prohibited him from working in Paris. In Hyde Park he painted pedestrians in summer clothes, visitors to the tea garden sitting under parasols, and the grace of horseback riders.
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Elegant Ladies and Men at the Beach (1926). Gerardus Hendrik Grauss (Dutch, 1882 -1929).
“Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
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A Woman Playing the Theorbo-Lute and a Cavalier (ca. 1658). Gerard ter Borch (Dutch, 1617–1681). Oil on wood, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Ter Borch was an exceptionally gifted observer of social behavior as well as physical qualities, such as the surfaces of fine materials or the naturalistic arrangement of objects in space. In this panel a duet—the man seems to be singing—resonates to the heartstrings, while a watch quietly recommends temperance.
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Lady by the Sea. Frederick Hendrik Kaemmerer (Dutch, 1839-1902). Oil on panel.
A student of Gérôme, Frederick Kaemmerer divided his time between Paris and the place of his birth, La Haye. His early works were often small, highly finished canvases of late 18th- and early 19th-century anecdotal history subjects. He debuted with these at the Salon of 1870 and met with considerable public and critical success: Kaemmerer was awarded a medal at the Salon of 1874.
