The Music Lesson

Music lessons were a cornerstone of aristocratic education in eighteenth-century France, particularly for young women, for whom proficiency at the harpsichord, harp, or lute was considered an essential social accomplishment. Nattier's genre painting depicting a music lesson, now in the Musée de la musique in Paris, occupies an interesting position in his output: it belongs to the tradition of conversation pieces and domestic genre scenes that Watteau and his followers had established as a distinctly French contribution to European painting. The Musée de la musique's collection focuses specifically on the history and material culture of music, making this a particularly appropriate institutional home for the work. Nattier painted this scene around 1710, and its relatively informal subject matter—compared to the formal mythological portraits of his peak decades—suggests either a transitional work or a demonstration piece showing his range. The painting touches on themes of cultivation, femininity, and the domestic interior that would become central preoccupations of French Rococo genre painting throughout the century.

The genre scene format allows Nattier to deploy a more varied compositional arrangement than his single-figure portraits. The inclusion of an instrument—likely a keyboard or stringed instrument—introduces geometric structure to offset the soft curves of the figures.