The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 14, 2025

Musical Scene

1625–55

Gerrit van Honthorst

(Dutch, 1590–1656)
Netherlands
black ink wash over pen and brown ink and black chalk over graphite on gray-brown paper with white heightening, incised
Support: 23.3 x 26.8 x 0.3 cm (9 3/16 x 10 9/16 x 1/8 in.); Image: 17.3 x 20.2 cm (6 13/16 x 7 15/16 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 2019.6
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

In 17th-century Holland, scenes of men and women playing music together often had amorous connotations.

Description

The Utrecht artist Gerrit van Honthorst was internationally known as a portrait painter, but he also gained a reputation as a painter of raucous musical scenes and parties. This drawing was once part of an album of compositional types that the artist showed to prospective patrons. Though the cheerful theme of a man and a woman sharing a song seems innocent, such unions often had amorous or lascivious connotations in 17th-century Holland.
  • 1625-55 to c. 1900
    Studio of Gerrit von Honthorst
    art market, Belgium
    Habolt & Co., Paris, France
    Private Collection, Amsterdam, Netherlands
    March 4, 2019
    the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Peters, Emily. “Acquisitions 2019: Drawings.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 60, no. 2 (March/April 2020): 20-21. Reproduced and Mentioned: P. 21.
  • {{cite web|title=Musical Scene|url=false|author=Gerrit van Honthorst|year=1625–55|access-date=14 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2019.6