Lady Playing a Lute in an Interior
Eglon van der Neer
(Amsterdam 1634/36 – 1703 Düsseldorf)

1675
oil on panel
39.4 x 33.4 cm
signed and dated, indistinctly, in light paint along
upper right: “van *** Neer 16[7?]5”
EN-100© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Lady Playing a Lute in an Interior
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How to cite
Wieseman, Marjorie E. “Lady Playing a Lute in an Interior” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed. Edited byArthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Lara Yeager-Crasselt. New York, 2020–23. https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/(archived December 2023).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed by apermanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

Eglon van der Neer’s musician presents an elegant figure as she sits before stately

Comparative Figuresarchitecture touched with gilt and partly masked by a swag of heavy curtain. She rests
her elbow on a velvet-draped table crammed with costly objects, including a book oftablature, a flute, a rumpled satin cloth, a silver ewer, a marble (?) statue of a putto,
and an open jewel casket. The woman herself is no less opulently packaged: she wears
a fur-trimmed crimson house jacket over a shimmering white satin skirt and a bodice
stiff with gold brocade. Emerging from the garments like Venus rising from the surf,
the iridescent flesh of her plump arms and inviting décolletage is accentuated by thedelicate frill of a white chemise. The young musician’s downcast gaze as she quietlylistens to the sounds of her instrument help create the painting’s reflective mood andengaging character.
The woman plays what appears to be a two-headed “French” lute. An identical
instrument appears in other of Van der Neer’s paintings of female musicians from the1670s.[1] Both as a solo instrument and in ensemble playing, the lute was highly
regarded among elite players for its versatility and diverse repertoire; moreover, theFig 1. Jan Lievens, Portrait of Jacques
Gaultier, 1632–35, etching, engraving,and drypoint, 268 x 213 mm, Museumof Fine Arts, Boston, Bequest ofWashington Irving Jenkins, inv.
M26837

warm tone produced by the gut strings was deemed ideal for vocal accompaniment.
Although the lute’s basic structure remained the same, it was modified continually
throughout the seventeenth century, at least partly in response to stylistic changes in
the music itself.[2] Much baroque music featured the basso continuo, in which the bassline provided the melody around which other instruments or voices improvised
harmonies. Accordingly, the lower register of the lute was extended by modifying oradapting the instrument to accommodate additional (unstopped) bass strings. The
archlute, chitarrone, theorbo, and two-headed “French” lute were among the more
popular variants produced in this way. As the modifications were often quite© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Lady Playing a Lute in an Interior
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individual, the differences between the instruments, and the terminology used todescribe them, are rather vague: indeed, when considering the design of the theorbo,
the seventeenth-century German composer and music theorist Michael Praetorius

Fig 2. Eglon van der Neer, A Lady
Tuning a Theorbo, 1678, oil on panel,
42.5 x 36.7 cm, Alte Pinakothek,Munich, inv. 204, bpk, Berlin / Alte
Pinakothek / Art Resource, NYremarked, “Since constant changes take place in these various matters, nothing very
definite may be stated about them here.”[3] The two-headed lute is thought to havebeen invented by the French lutenist Jacques Gaultier (active 1617–52). An engraved
portrait by Jan Lievens (1607–74) shows Gaultier holding an instrument similar tothat depicted in Van der Neer’s painting (fig 1).[4]Taking full advantage of his meticulous technique, Van der Neer has carefully
calculated every aspect of the painting to entice the senses of touch, sight and sound,and in so doing, to emphasize the inherent sensuality of the image itself. The
deliberate juxtaposition of so many luxurious surface textures prompts admiration of
the artist’s skill, and the accuracy of the illusion allows the viewer to dwell on thepleasurable aesthetic and sensorial qualities of the actual objects.[5] Nowhere is thismore seductively presented than in Van der Neer’s rendering of the woman’s soft
flesh: in visually “touching” her flesh (as well as the other objects in the painting), weare led to consider the touch of her fingers upon the strings of the lute. We imagine
the sweet sounds produced by her playing, which prompts us to summon pleasantrecollections of our own musical experiences. The reverse is also true, of course:
seeing her fingers dance across the lute strings prompts us to imagine our own fingers
testing surfaces and textures so meticulously and sensually presented.
In light of the unabashedly sensual pose of Van der Neer’s model—positioned
frontally, her knees spread wide, her jacket opened, and her bodice artfullyloosened—it is impossible not to connect with music’s more erotic associations.
Musical motifs in paintings routinely connoted harmony in both its familial andamorous aspects, and Dutch paintings of love and courtship involved music more
often than not. More specifically, a lute, or any of the instrument’s variant forms,
could be a powerfully erotic symbol and often figured as a metaphor for a woman’sgenitalia.[6] Given the pervasive sensuality of the painting, it seems likely that Van derNeer had such erotic allusions in mind, albeit cloaked in an aura of elegance andrefinement.
Like many of his colleagues, Van der Neer frequently refined the depiction of aparticular theme in a series of closely related paintings executed over a short span oftime. In the 1670s, for example, he produced several paintings of female lute players
seated in sumptuous interiors: in addition to the present work, there are examples in a
private collection in Hamburg; in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Karlsruhe (dated1677); in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin; and in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich(fig 2).
[7]

The last, dated 1678, repeats the present composition with just a few variations: the© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Lady Playing a Lute in an Interior
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woman tunes the lute rather than playing it, and the music book has been placed atshoulder height rather than by her elbow. This latter modification enabled Van derNeer to give a more elegant turn to the musician’s head. The architectural backgroundin the Munich painting, while still classical in style, has been modified to suggest alarger, lighter hall rather than a dark and intimate chamber. The woman’s costumeand hairstyle have also been updated: the fur-trimmed house jacket ubiquitous inDutch genre scenes of the 1650s, 1660s, and early 1670s has been discarded,
revealing a sumptuous and vaguely historicizing mélange of silky garments more inkeeping with fashions of the late 1670s. In both paintings, the emphasis on theclassical architecture, the overt luxury of the costumes and accessories, and above all
the cool perfection of Van der Neer’s technique reflect the taste for “French”
elegance and refinement that spread throughout the Netherlands during the lastquarter of the seventeenth century.

- Marjorie E. Wieseman, 2017

© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Lady Playing a Lute in an Interior
Page 5 of 8Endnotes
1. Eddy Schavemaker, Eglon van der Neer (1635/36–1703): His Life and His Work (Doornspijk, 2010),
nos. 46, 57, 73.
2. On the complicated development of lute variants in the Renaissance and baroque periods, see Robert
Spencer, “Chitarrone, Theorbo, and Archlute,” Early Music 4 (October 1976): 408–22; and on theirrepresentation in the visual arts, Mariagrazia Carlone, “Lutes, Archlutes, Theorboes in Iconography,”Music in Art 30, nos. 1–2 (2005): 88–96.
3. Michael Praetorius, Syntagma Musicum II: De Organographia (Wolfenbüttel, 1619; English translation
by David Z. Crookes, Oxford, 1991), 52. The two-headed lute is commonly described as a theorbo;
however, on the theorbo the bass strings are carried by a more extended neck.
4. The print shows the instrument in reverse. For a recent discussion of the image, see Stephanie Dickey,in Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., ed., Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered (Exh. cat. Washington D.C.,
National Gallery of Art; Milwaukee, Milwaukee Art Museum; Amsterdam, Museum HetRembrandthuis) (New Haven, 2008), 207.
5. See, among other studies: Eric Jan Sluijter, “‘Een stuck waerin een jufr: Voor de spiegel van GerritDouw,’” Antiek 23 (1988): 150–61.
6. Among the many publications on musical symbolism in seventeenth-century Dutch painting, see RoySonnema, “Representations of Music in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art” (Ph.D. diss., University ofCalifornia, Berkeley, 1990); and Edwin Buijsen, Louis Peter Grijp, et al., The Hoogsteder Exhibition ofMusic and Painting in the Golden Age (Exh. cat. The Hague, Hoogsteder & Hoogsteder; Antwerp,Hessenhuis Museum) (The Hague, 1994). Specifically on the lute as an erotic symbol, see Eddy deJongh, “Realisme en schiknrealisme in de Hollandse schilderkunst van de zeventiende eeuw,” inRembrandt en zijn tijd (Exh. cat. Brussels, Musée des Beaux Arts de Belgique) (Brussels, 1971), 178.
7. Eddy Schavemaker, Eglon van der Neer (1635/36–1703): His Life and His Work (Doornspijk, 2010),nos. 57, 73, 46, and 83, respectively; for additional examples see nos. 38, 39, and 61. Besides inventing
new iterations of a theme, Van der Neer also made adjustments to compositions as he worked: forexample, he changed the position of the musician’s head in A Woman Playing the Lute (Berlin); see Eddy
Schavemaker, in Jeroen Giltaij et al., Senses and Sins: Dutch Painters of Daily Life in the SeventeenthCentury (Exh. cat. Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen; Frankfurt, Städelsches Kunstinstitutund Städtische Galerie) (Hatje Cantz, 2004), 270.

Provenance© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Lady Playing a Lute in an Interior
Page 6 of 8Count Eduard Aleksander Raczyński (1847–1926), Ragolin, Pozńan, Poland, by 1912.
(Possibly sale, Christie’s, London, 21 July 1933, no. 143 [to Lacy for 7 gns.]).
[Xaver Scheidwimmer, Munich, 1959].
Baroness Aida Nora von dem Bussche-Streithorst (her sale, Christie’s, New York, 6 April 2006, no. 46);
[Johnny van Haeften Ltd., London, 2006].
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2006.

Exhibition History
Rome, Scuderie del Quirinale, “Vermeer: Il secolo d’oro dell’arte olandese,” 27 September 2012–20
January 2013, no. 35 [lent by the present owner].
Dallas, Dallas Museum of Art, “Vermeer Suite: Music in 17th-Century Dutch Painting,” 17 January
2016–21 August 2016 [lent by the present owner].
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The LeidenCollection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].
Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection,” 23 September 2017–25 February 2018 [lent by the presentowner].
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpiecesof The Leiden Collection,” 28 March 2018–22 July 2018 [lent by the present owner].
St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces of
The Leiden Collection,” 5 September 2018–13 January 2019 [lent by the present owner].
Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces fromThe Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre,” 14 February–18 May 2019 [lent by the presentowner].

References
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters ofthe Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith. Edited and translated by Edward G. Hawke, 8vols. London, 1907–28, 5:493, no. 73. Originally published as Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis
der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts. 10 vols. Esslingen andParis, 1907–28.
“Willkommen in München.” Die Weltkunst 29 (15 October 1959): 3.
© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Lady Playing a Lute in an Interior
Page 7 of 8Brochhagen, Ernst, and Brigitte Knüttel. Katalog der Alte Pinakothek, III: Holländische Malerei des17. Jahrhunderts. Munich, 1967, 48, under no. 204.
Bernt, Walther. Die niederländischen Maler und Zeichner des 17. Jahrhunderts. 2 vols. Munich, 1980,
2:54, no. 900.
Schavemaker, Eddy. “Dame, eine Theorbe stimmend.” In Vom Adel der Malerei: Holland um 1700.
Edited by Ekkehard Mai et al., 232, under no. 63. Exh. cat. Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz Museum;
Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum; Kassel, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Schloss Wilhelmshohe. Cologne,2006.
Schavemaker, Eddy. Eglon van der Neer (1635/36–1703): His Life and His Work. Doornspijk, 2010,
477, no. 63.
Wieseman, Marjorie E. “Donna che suona la tiorba in un interno.” In Vermeer: Il secolo d’oro dell’arteolandese. Edited by Sandrina Bandera, Walter Liedtke, and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., 178–81, no. 35.
Exh. cat. Rome, Scuderie del Quirinale. Milan, 2012.
Aono, Junko. Confronting the Golden Age: Imitation and Innovation in Dutch Genre Painting.
Amsterdam, 2015, 29, no. 4.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Rembrandt and His Time: China and the Dutch Republic in the Golden Age.” InRembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 10;15, no. 68. Translated by Li Ying. Exh. cat. Beijing, National Museum of China. Beijing, 2017
McCarthy, Alexa. “Lady Playing a Lute in an Interior.” In Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces fromThe Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 156–57; 189, no. 68. Translated by Li Ying. Exh.
cat. Beijing, National Museum of China. Beijing, 2017.
Wang, Jia. “Dutch Painting in Golden Age.” In Journal of National Museum of China 169, no. 8 (2017):
39.
Long Museum, West Bund. Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age: Masterpieces fromThe Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund. Shanghai, 2017, 170–71.
McCarthy, Alexa. “Lady Playing a Lute in an Interior.” In The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:
Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 148–49; 240, no. 38. Translatedby Daria Babich and Daria Kuzina. Exh. cat. Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts; St.
Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Moscow, 2018.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “The Leiden Collection and the Dutch Golden Age.” In Rembrandt, Vermeer andthe Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Edited byBlaise Ducos and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 30. Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019.
[Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]
Ducos, Blaise, and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, eds. Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age.
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre AbuDhabi. London, 2019, 163, no. 82. [Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]© 2024 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Lady Playing a Lute in an Interior
Page 8 of 8Versions
Versions and Copies
Eglon van der Neer, Lady Tuning a Lute, 1678, oil on panel, 42.5 x 36.7 cm, Alte Pinakothek, Munich,inv. 204.

Technical Summary
The support, a rectangular-shaped composite panel comprising two planks of vertically grained oak, has ahorizontal panel join near the upper edge and a vertical wood shim along the left edge.[1] The panel isunthinned and uncradled, and has bevels on all four sides. A light-colored, radio-opaque priming has been
applied to the reverse, and a red wax seal and an ink inscription have been applied over the priming. Twohorizontal battens were removed sometime after the priming was applied, and an additional light-coloredpriming was applied locally to the wood that was exposed when the battens were removed and to the narrowhorizontal plank along the upper edge. Machine tool marks visible beneath the light-colored coating along theright edge appear to continue across the panel reverse. There is a red wax collection seal and four
handwritten inscriptions, but no import stamps, stencils, labels or panel maker’s marks are visible.
A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied. The paint has been thinly and smoothly appliedwith areas of low brushmarking and transparent glazing but no use of impasto, although the contours of theforms are slightly raised.
No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers. Minor
compositional changes are visible. The thumb of the figure’s proper right hand has been shifted closer to theindex finger; the drapery originally hung along the background to the figure’s right and was tied back behind
her proper left shoulder; the sleeve along the figure’s proper left shoulder and forearm has been shifted; andan ornamental element along the lower end of the pilaster to the right of the figure has been painted out inthe final composition although a similar element is present further up the pilaster.
The painting was cleaned and restored in 2006. It is in excellent condition, with minimal abrasion along thefigure’s proper left shoulder and along the lower edge of her dress, and is in an excellent state ofpreservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The characterization of the wood is based on visual examination only.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection