Artwork
Couple making music
Couple making music is an oil painting by the Dutch Golden Age artist Cornelis de Man. It dates from 1690 and is held in the collection of the Rijksmuseum. ...
About this work
Subject & Meaning
Such imagery often carried moralizing overtones, promoting the virtues of moderation and domestic felicity in line with contemporary Dutch domestic ideals.
The painting depicts an elegantly dressed couple seated at a virginal, engaged in making music together. Such scenes belong to a broader Dutch tradition of genre scenes that celebrate domestic harmony and cultivated leisure within the home. The presence of the keyboard instrument signals the couple’s refinement and participation in the cultural practices associated with the Dutch Republic’s burgher class in the late seventeenth century.
The composition emphasizes mutual engagement and shared enjoyment, underscoring ideals of partnership and social harmony. Such imagery often carried moralizing overtones, promoting the virtues of moderation and domestic felicity in line with contemporary Dutch domestic ideals.
Technique & Style
Executed in 1680, this genre scene by Cornelis de Man is an oil painting on canvas. The work measures 82.5 cm in height and 66 cm in width. As a piece of genre art, it depicts a couple engaged in making music, reflecting the domestic interior subjects popular during the period.
The painting entered the collection of Adriaan van der Hoop before becoming part of the holdings at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
History & Provenance
The painting is dated 1680 and is attributed to Cornelis de Man. It entered the public record as part of the collection of Adriaan van der Hoop before 1854, when his holdings were transferred to the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. The work has remained in that institution’s holdings since then, forming part of its collection of genre scenes by Dutch masters of the late seventeenth century.
The painting is held by the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, where it is inventoried as object number SK-C-1943.
It entered the museum’s holdings as part of the Adriaan van der Hoop bequest in 1854, accessioned under the 1854 inventory of the Van der Hoop collection.
Overview
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Artist & collection
The Whale-oil Refinery near the Village of Smerenburg
Reyer Reyersz van der Burch (1630-95), ammunition officer attached to the arsenal of the states-general, Delft, with his wife Geertruid Graswinckel and their children
View in the Oude Kerk in Delft, from the choir to the portal
The Oude Kerk, Delft
The Chess Players
Geographers at Work
The Oude Kerk, Delft
