Saint Cecilia with a Double Bass, a Winged Angel Holding the Score

Saint Cecilia, patron of music, is depicted here — in a late canvas around 1650 — playing or directing, accompanied by a winged angel holding the musical score. Cecilia's musical patronage derived from a passage in her Acts describing her singing to God during her forced wedding, and from the later tradition of her playing the organ as angels attended. Strozzi's version is notable for specifying the instrument as a double bass, an unusually precise — and unusually low — choice that gives the image an earthly, almost domestic musical character despite the angelic attendance. Music was central to Venetian religious and civic life, and Cecilia was a natural subject for a city where the ospedali produced extraordinary musicians. The winged angel with the score suggests collaborative performance, making this as much an image of musical practice as of hagiographic legend.

The double bass's large wooden body presented Strozzi with a substantial still-life element requiring careful rendering of varnished wood grain and curved form. The angel's wings and the saint's robes create sweeping diagonals in contrast to the instrument's upright mass. Musical score pages, rendered in trompe l'oeil detail, add textural variety to the surface.