Art Institute of Chicago
The Music Lesson
Jacob Ochtervelt (Dutch, 1634-1682)LinkedCulture matchlcp-be8689f2460a
- Date
- 1671
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Culture
- Holland
- Department
- Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Institution
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Object ID
- 16398
From the Art Institute of Chicago record
Jacob Ochtervelt animated this intimate scene with delicate light, which illuminates the young woman and leaves the young man partly in shadow. The artist positioned the figures in angled poses suggesting a playful interaction. The girl holds a violin, an instrument then more often played by men, and points authoritatively to the music score, another reversal of typical gender roles for the period. By upending these conventions, Ochtervelt quietly commented on the rituals of romance in the 17th century.
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Provenance & credit
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- Credit line
- Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection
- Provenance
- Pieter van Winter, Amsterdam (died 1807) [according to Priem 1997 on the basis of a drawing from the Praetorius Album by Pieter Ernst Hendrik Praetorius in the Six Collection, Amsterdam showing the contents of the van Winter Collection]; by descent to his heirs until the division of his property in 1818, when it was assigned to the portion of his daughter Lucretia Johanna van Winter [according to Priem 1997]. Presumably Prince Anatole Demidoff, Villa San Donato, near Florence (died 1870); by descent to his nephew Prince Paul Demidoff (died 1885) and later to Paul Demidoff’s widow, Helena Troubetskoi, Pratolino, near Florence; purchased by Martin A. Ryerson (died 1932), Chicago, through Durand-Ruel, Paris in 1890 [purchase through Durand-Ruel established by Day Book in Registrar’s Office, Art Institute (entry for October 31, 1890); Bode 1895 indicated that the painting came from Demidoff]; intermittently on loan to the Art Institute from 1911 [according to registrar’s records]; bequeathed to the Art Institute, 1933.
Linked open data
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- Object type
- AAT300033618
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