A Musical Party

This painting represents the front rooms of a fine town house with several figures which recall earlier paintings by Frans van Mieris the Elder, for example, the figure of the seated man is derived from the one in the foreground of Van Mieris’s Brothel Scene, the arrangement of objects in the foreground recalls motifs in The Painter’s Studio. The subject of elegant musical gatherings flourished during the 1650s, for example in the work of the Amsterdam painters Gerbrand van den Eeckhout and Jacob van Loo.