Bartholomeus van der Helst | The Musician, 1662

Tuning the strings of her theorbo-lute, a beautiful musician directs an engaging glance at the viewer.

The foreground of the picture displays a viola da gamba and sheet music for tenor and soprano voices, suggesting that the lute player anticipates a duet.

Dutch painters of the seventeenth century frequently associated music-making and courtship with amateur concerts, providing opportunities for mingling and flirtation. | Source: © Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bartholomeus van der Helst | The Musician, 1662 | Metropolitan Museum of Art

From: Wikipedia

The Musician (1662) is an oil on canvas painting by the Dutch painter Bartholomeus van der Helst.

It is an example of Dutch Golden Age painting and is part of the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The art historian J.J. de Gelder mentioned the lute shown in the painting is a theorbe and it rests on a viola de gamba.

He found the landscape reminiscent of Jan Baptist Weenix.

The Van der Helst scholar Judith van Gent dismisses both this painting and the Granida as a portrait of the artist's wife Anna du Pire based on the age of the painter and his wife at the time.

She notes Liedtke's comparison to the other Dutch lute players in the MET collection, namely Vermeer's Woman with a Lute, where the woman is also tuning the lute, and Gerard ter Borch's A Woman Playing the Theorbo-Lute and a Cavalier.

She wonders whether the act of tuning a lute used to have a meaning that is now lost on us.

Gerard ter Borch | A Woman Playing the Theorbo-Lute and a Cavalier, 1658 | Metropolitan Museum of Art

A Woman Playing the Theorbo-Lute and a Cavalier is an oil on wood painting by Dutch artist Gerard ter Borch the Younger, created c. 1658.

The work depicts a young woman playing a theorbo while her lover looks on.

The painting is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York.

Johannes Vermeer | Woman with a Lute, 1662-1663 | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Woman with a Lute, also known as Woman with a Lute Near a Window, is a painting created about 1662-1663 by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer and now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The painting depicts a young woman wearing an ermine-trimmed jacket and enormous pearl earrings as she eagerly looks out a window, presumably expecting a male visitor.

"A musical courtship is suggested by the viola da gamba on the floor in the foreground and by the flow of songbooks across the tabletop and onto the floor", according to a web page about the work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art website.

The tuning of a lute was recognized by contemporary viewers as a symbol of the virtue of temperance.

The oil on canvas work is 20¼ inches high and 18 inches wide (51.4 × 45.7 cm).

The painting's canvas was almost certainly cut from the same bolt as that used for Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid.

The Vermeer was donated to the MET's collection in 1900, and the Ter Borch in 1914, both of which had been recently imported to the US, probably also based on the popularity at the time of this painting.