Women at a Virginal Making Music

Jan Miense Molenaer (Dutch, 1609 or 1610–1668)

1634

Medium/TechniqueOil on panel

Dimensions50.8 × 34.7 cm (20 × 13 11/16 in.)

Credit LineMuseum purchase with funds donated by Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo, in support of the Center for Netherlandish Art

Accession number2020.401

On View

On view

ClassificationsPaintings

Collections

Europe

Description

A woman plays a keyboard instrument, while another woman and a little girl stand behind. The instrument, known as a virginal, is decorated with cornflowers under the strings and a landscape with lovers on the lid. The mellow sound of the virginal allowed it to be accompanied by other instruments. A flute, a recorder, and a lute (all symbols of love) suggest the imminent arrival of a male companion.

InscriptionsSigned on virginal and dated on chair leg.ProvenanceWilliam Cowper-Temple, 1st Baron Mount Temple (b. 1811 – d. 1888), Broadlands, Hampshire; by inheritance to his nephew, Evelyn Ashley (b. 1836 – d. 1907), London; 1889, sold by Ashley by private treaty, with the Temple collection, to Edward Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh (b. 1847 – d. 1927), London; 1927, by inheritance to his son, Arthur Ernest Guinness (b. 1876 – d. 1949), Holmbury House, Holmbury St. Mary, Surrey; July 10, 1953, posthumous Guinness and others sale, Christie’s, London, lot 61 [see note 1], sold for £1995 to Haward. With Horace Buttery (restorer; b. 1902 – d. 1962), London. January 16, 1992, anonymous (private collector) sale, Christie’s, New York, lot 127. 1992, Richard Green (dealer), London. 1994, private collection, Great Neck, NY; 2020, consigned by this private collection to Salomon Lillian (dealer), Amsterdam and Geneva; 2020, sold by Salomon Lillian to the MFA. (Accession Date: December 16, 2020)

NOTES:
[1] Attributed in the catalogue to Dirk Hals and titled “The Spinet.” The painting had been lent by Mrs. Edward Guinness to the exhibition Dutch Pictures 1450-1750 (Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1952-1953), cat. no. 221.