A Musical Party

Musicians perform together in this 1659 musical party at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the subjects Metsu painted most frequently during his Amsterdam years. Music-making scenes reflected the genuine importance of music in Dutch social life while providing painters with compositional opportunities—the interaction of players, the visual beauty of instruments, and the suggestion of an art form that painting itself could not reproduce. Metsu was among the most gifted painters of the Dutch Golden Age's second generation, combining Rembrandt's tonal depth with Vermeer's luminosity in genre scenes of exceptional refinement.

The musicians are arranged in a group that combines portrait-like individualization with the compositional requirements of a genre scene. Instruments are rendered with enough precision to identify their type and construction, while the players" postures and expressions suggest the act of performance. Metsu"s palette is characteristically warm and luminous, with the varied textures of instruments, clothing, and furnishings each contributing to the overall richness.