Musical Subjects - I

Bernardo Strozzi
Lute Player
ca. 1640-45
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Jan van Scorel
Portrait of a Lute Player
ca. 1530
oil on panel
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Jean de Reyn
Lute Player
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

attributed to Simone Peterzano
Venus playing the Lute
ca. 1565-70
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Jan Molitor
Portrait of a Young Man with a Lute
1741
oil on canvas
Národní Galerie, Prague

Jan Miense Molenaer
Self Portrait as Lute Player
ca. 1637-38
oil on panel
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Adam de Coster
Lute Player
ca. 1620-30
oil on canvas
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

Anonymous French Artist after Simon Vouet
Lute Player
ca. 1620
oil on canvas
Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Genève

Johann Bruederle
Card Game with Lute Player
ca. 1630
oil on canvas
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Jacob van Loo
Musical Company
ca. 1665-66
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Francesco Primaticcio
Group with Musicians in a Garden
ca. 1540-50
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Godaert Kamper
Musical Party
ca. 1660
oil on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Francesco Fontebasso
Musicians behind a Balustrade
ca. 1743-50
drawing
(design for ceiling painting)
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Leonaert Bramer
Musicians on a Balcony
ca. 1616-27
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Gaetano Gherardo Zompini
Centaur Chiron teaching Music to Achilles
ca. 1758
drawing
(print study)
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Evaristo Baschenis
Still Life with Musical Instruments, Globe and Armillary Sphere
ca. 1660
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

from Time and the Witch Vivien 

A marble-flagged, pillared room. Magical instruments in one corner. A fountain in the centre.

Vivien [looking down into the fountain.]

     Where moves there any beautiful as I,
     Save, with the little golden greedy carp,
     Gold unto gold, a gleam in its long hair,

     My image yonder?     [Spreading her hand over the water.]

                                     Ah, my beautiful,
     What roseate fingers!                             [Turning away.]    

                                        No; nor is there one  

     Of equal power in spells and secret rites.
     The proudest or most coy of spirit things,

     Hide where he will, in wave or wrinkled moon,
     Obeys.
                 Some fierce magician flies or walks
     Beyond the gateway – by the sentries now –
     Close and more close – I feel him in my heart –
     Some great one.  No; I hear the wavering steps
     Without there of a little, light old man;
     I dreamt some great one. 

– W.B. Yeats (1882-84)