Musicerend gezelschap

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669)

Item type:

painting

Date of creation:

1626

Height:

63.0 cm  (24 13/16 in.)

Width:

48.0 cm  (18 7/8 in.)

monogrammed and dated lower left: Rh 1626

Technique / Medium:

oil on panel

Place of creation:

Leiden

Additional titles

Description

Two men and two women are in a room where a beam of light falls from top left. The older man is sitting on the left facing forwards and playing a viola da gamba. He wears a silk caftan and a turban. Standing obliquely behind him is a young man plucking the strings of a small harp, which appears to be perched on a chair the back of which hides part of the instrument. A richly dressed young woman wearing a golden headdress incorporating a tall crest sits further to the front in the centre of the composition and in the strongest light, with her right foot on a raised pedestal and the left leg crossed over the right; she is reading from a large music book lying on her lap, and is (as we can tell from her half-opened mouth) singing while she beats time with her raised right hand. To the right, and behind her, lening on the back of the young woman's chair, stands an old woman resting her chin on her hand. To the right, alongisde the old woman, a table covedes with a cloth bears a silver-coloured beaker with gold ornamentation and a small open box (probably a toilet box). The space in front of the group is occupied by a piece of forniture serving as a dark repoussoir, on which lies a violin. On the floor, beside and behind it, are a lute and a haphazard pile of books, some open, some closed. Some of the books are propped against the tablecloth. On the partially-lit wall in the background, above the wainscot, hangs a painting of Lot's flight from Sodom, in a black frame lined with gold. A curtain hangs on the right. (A Corpus of Rembrandts Paintings, A 7, p. 116)

Instruments [MIMO Code] (notes)

Viola da gamba [3604] (six strings)
Harp [3285]
Lute [3394]
Violin [3573]
Clavichord [2232] (from "Rembrandts Leidse Tijd", p. 315: "rechts op de tafel zien we een grote gouden wijnbeker en een kistje dat vroeger wel voor een juwelenkistje werd gehouden, maar in feite een clavichord is, een oud muziekinstrument met toetsen".)

Musical works

illegible music notation

RIdIM images

Image URLs

image link 1

Bibliographic references

Bol, Laurens J. "Rembrandts musicerend gezelschap: een vanitas-allegorie", Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 25/3 (1977) 95-118.

"Keuze uit de aanwinsten", Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 25/1 (1977) 24-27, nr. 1.

Straten, Roelof van. "Een nieuwe interpretatie van Rembrandts 'Musicerend gezelschap'", Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 40/2 (1992) 158-160.

Wadum, Jørgen. "Dou doesn't paint, oh no, he juggles with his brush: Gerrit Dou a Rembrandtesque 'Fijnschilder'", ArtMatters 1 (2002) 62-77, plate 12.

De Jongh, E. Muziek aan de muur: Muzikale voorstellingen in de Nederlanden 1500-1700 (Zwolle: Waanders, 2008) 64. ISBN 904008470X.

Bruyn, J. A corpus of Rembrandt paintings (The Hague; Boston: M. Nijhoff Publishers, 1982-) vol. 1, 114-123, A7. ISBN 902472614X.

Straten, Roelof van and Ingrid Moerman. Rembrandts Leidse Tijd, 1606-1632 (Leiden: Foleor, 2005) 314-320. ISBN: 9075035217.

RIdIM record id

2896