Young Lady Playing a Clavichord

Gerrit Dou's Young Lady Playing a Clavichord from around 1660 depicts a well-dressed woman at a keyboard instrument, a subject that connected to Dutch ideals of female accomplishment and the cultural associations between music and love. Dou's small-scale genre paintings of elegant figures in domestic interiors were among the most expensive paintings in seventeenth-century Holland, commanding prices that exceeded those of Rembrandt's works. His meticulous technique required days of work on passages that other painters would complete in hours.

Dou's characteristic window-niche format frames the scene with trompe-l'oeil precision. The rendering of the clavichord's polished surfaces, the sitter's silk dress, and the reflected light demonstrates the microscopic precision that made him the most highly paid Dutch genre painter.