Nobody can paint a note, but some painters came close. In Philadelphia, one had a contralto sing the same phrase of an aria at every sitting, on and off for two years, to catch the shape of a single vowel. Elsewhere, painters filled an orchestra pit with their friends, or sat down at the instrument themselves.
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How These Were Chosen
A painting cannot make a sound. A painter who takes musicians as a subject has to show how the sound is made: fingers on keys or strings, a mouth open on a note, a score open at the right page.
Music also said something about the sitter. A courtier was expected to read music and play, so a lute or a keyboard in a portrait claimed an education. A concert could stand for love, for the praise of God or for pleasures that do not last.
Each painting here gets the music right, with an instrument precise enough to be named and a hand or a mouth caught in the act. Each also brings a real musician whose name has come down to us, or a meaning the painter wanted the music to carry.
12. Sofonisba Anguissola, Self-Portrait at the Spinet (about 1561)
Two hands rest on the keys of a small keyboard instrument, seen from above and almost whole, and they belong to the painter herself. Sofonisba Anguissola painted this self-portrait around 1561, with an old woman watching from behind her, perhaps her nurse or a servant. The instrument is usually called a spinet, a keyboard whose strings are plucked by quills, though some catalogs describe it as a clavichord.
Why those hands take up so much room becomes clear once the destination of the picture is known. Anguissola came from Cremona, in northern Italy, and painted herself again and again. Her father, Amilcare, sent the self-portraits as gifts to nobles, friends and fellow painters, so each canvas traveled like a letter of introduction.
A self-portrait at the keyboard made that introduction twice over. The likeness proved that she could paint. The instrument pointed to the rest of the education she had received in her father's household, where she learned music, dance and literature along with drawing and painting.
The old woman behind her completes the message. With a listener in the room, the portrait turns into a small scene of a musician playing for someone, and whoever unpacked the canvas met Anguissola twice, as a painter and as a player.
At a Glance
Artist: Sofonisba Anguissola (about 1532 to 1625)
Painted: About 1561 (some scholars date it before 1559)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: About 81 × 63 cm (31.9 × 24.8 in)
Where to see it: Althorp House, Northamptonshire, England (Spencer collection, private). An earlier version, with no old woman, is at the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples.
11. Rembrandt, Musical Company (1626)
A young woman in rich clothes sings from a songbook open on her lap. A man in a turban accompanies her on a viola da gamba, a bowed string instrument held upright between the legs, and a young man stands with a harp. Behind the singer, an old woman watches, and who she is decides what kind of concert this is.