A Musician and His Daughter

A Musician and His Daughter

A Musician and His Daughter

Artist:Thomas de Keyser (Dutch, Amsterdam (?) 1596/97–1667 Amsterdam)
Date:1629
Medium:Oil on wood
Dimensions:29 1/2 x 20 3/4 in. (74.9 x 52.7 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Gift of Edith Neuman de Végvár, in honor of her husband, Charles Neuman de Végvár, 1964

In this dynamic formal portrait an amateur musician with a theorbo is presented with his daughter in a spare but stylish interior. Both are expensively dressed, the girl in adult attire. Such a portrait of parent and child has teaching or, at least, setting an example as its theme. The steep perspective and, as a result, the seemingly awkward pose of the man (he is sitting, not rising) are typical of De Keyser, who until Rembrandt arrived in the early 1630s was the most prominent portrait painter in Amsterdam.

Catalogue Entry
This picture, dated 1629, is one of several small-scale full-length portraits by De Keyser painted in Amsterdam during the late 1620s and early 1630s. In each case, the figures are set in a contemporary interior. At least four of them show a man with a child, and in two instances it is obvious that he is the child's father. The Museum's painting has been variously interpreted, but it is concluded here that the man is indeed the girl's father and moreover that he is an amateur musician and not a professional music teacher.
The two figures are richly dressed in what might be described as the latest conservative fashion. Especially stylish are the man's shoes and white gloves, one of which is on the table. To the modern viewer it might appear that a man wearing a hat, a mantle over one shoulder, and a glove must have just come indoors, but many contemporary pictures, including De Keyser's Constantijn Huygens and His Clerk (National Gallery, London), show that this is not the case. The child, who is perhaps ten or eleven years old, is dressed in a manner that is entirely consistent with what a woman twenty years older might wear, including a considerable amount of jewelry. Her hands are oddly mature.
The interior, athough spare, makes a similarly grand impression. The faux-marble floor is extravagantly patterned, and illustrates De Keyser's usual exaggeration of receding space. This design idea, which probably reflects the painter's early exposure to architectural drafting, complements the angular poses and arbitrary proportions (long limbs and short torsos) that he assigned to portrait patrons. The drawing of the theorbo and especially of its open case is also a demonstration of skill in the use of linear perspective. The case—here lined with paper decorated with drawn or printed images—is something of a curiosity, as lute cases were usually lined with fabric. Its cheaper lining and battered exterior may indicate that De Keyser used an actual model.
Other artists of the day, including De Keyser's Amsterdam predecessor Cornelis van der Voort (ca. 1576–1624), set full-length portraits in contemporary interiors, a trend partly indebted to English court portraiture. However, this approach and another comparatively new concept in Northern European portraiture, that of presenting figures in transitional poses, were employed more consistently by De Keyser than by any other Dutch portraitist of the 1620s.
Adams (1985) proposed a narrative that might explain the man's action in the Museum's painting, which she considered De Keyser's "strangest work," though comparison with roughly contemporary works by the artist suggests that the pose is not so exceptional, and that reading any narrative into the picture may be inappropriate. As in other portraits of seated men by De Keyser, the combination of a tall chair and an accelerated perspective recession results in what looks like a nearly standing pose, though the man here is firmly seated. The theorbo is his attribute as an amateur musician, and as a gentleman who could afford a costly instrument. The girl is probably too young to play it (smaller ones were available). The father could be described as setting an example rather than providing instruction, through his interest in one of the liberal arts. The bust over the doorway, if it represents Minerva, would support this interpretation. The goddess was often depicted as a patroness of learning and of the arts.
[2011; adapted from Liedtke 2007]

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