Self-Portrait as a Lute Player, c. 1637/1638

In this finely wrought self-portrait, Jan Miense Molenaer sits with a lute balanced high on his left thigh, adjusting a tuning peg with one hand and thumbing a string with the other. His furrowed brow and fixed gaze convey the level of concentration needed to coax just the right note from the instrument. A still-life ensemble of food, instruments, and smoking paraphernalia lies beside him: walnuts cracked on a plate, a small violin known as a pochette resting atop a recorder, and coals in a brazier burning low. Together with the soft lighting, the scene exudes a sense of calm and quiet.

Much of the painting’s charm comes from the extraordinary naturalism that Molenaer conveyed through his exquisite attention to detail and deftly handled brush. He modelled his fabrics and metals with carefully blended colors, applying quick highlights at curves and contours to give his materials form and substance, as is evident in his creamy gray ensemble with a broad white collar. Molenaer may have even used the blunt end of his brush to scrape away paint to indicate the individual curls of his moustache and leonine mane.

Molenaer’s identity as the sitter is confirmed by comparisons with other known self-portraits. One sees the same curly hair, broadly set eyes, bulbous nose, and cleft chin in The Duet, the double-portrait he painted of himself and his wife, the artist Judith Leyster (Dutch, 1609 - 1660), around 1635–1636 [fig. 1]   [fig. 1] Jan Miense Molenaer, The Duet, 1635–1636, oil on panel, private collection, and in his Self-Portrait with Family Members of c. 1636 [fig. 2]   [fig. 2] Jan Miense Molenaer, Self-Portrait with Family Members, 1635, oil on panel, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, on long-term loan from the Rijksdienst voor de Cultureel Erfgoed.[1]  [1]
According to Dennis P. Weller in personal communication with the author, Sept. 16, 2015, other self-portraits may possibly appear in Artist in His Studio with an Old Woman, c. 1632–1633, oil on panel, Private Collection; Man with a Pipe, c. 1632–1634, oil on panel, Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main, inv. no. 221; and in the background of Woman Playing a Virginal, c. 1635, oil on panel, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, on loan from the City of Amsterdam, inv. no. SK-C-140. Self-Portrait as a Lute Player has traditionally been dated slightly earlier than these works.[2]  [2]
The painting has previously been dated to 1635 in Gemälde Alter Meister, auction catalog, Galerie Sanct Lucas, Vienna, Autumn 1996, no. 32; and Dennis P. Weller, “Self-Portrait as a Lute Player” in Jan Miense Molenaer: Painter of the Dutch Golden Age, ed. Dennis P. Weller (Raleigh, 2002), 130–132. However, Molenaer appears to be slightly older in the Gallery’s painting, and the somewhat loose brushwork, particularly in the handling of the face and drapery, is consistent with the evolution of his style around 1637, when he moved to Amsterdam.[3]  [3]
Dennis P. Weller, “Jan Miense Molenaer: Painter of the Dutch Golden Age” in Jan Miense Molenaer: Painter of the Dutch Golden Age, ed. Dennis P. Weller (Raleigh, 2002), 17–24. Pentimenti visible both to the naked eye and through infrared reflectography reinforce this slightly later dating, as they show that Molenaer originally based the position of his right hand on the self-portrait in The Duet. As in that work, he initially pictured himself strumming the lute, but later revised the gesture to show himself tuning its strings instead [fig. 3]   [fig. 3] Detail of hand on lute, infrared reflectogram, Jan Miense Molenaer, Self-Portrait as a Lute Player, c. 1636/1637, oil on panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund. Infrared reflectography also shows that Molenaer signed the work “J M_LE_ӔR” to the left of the lute, a signature configuration that is consistent with his work of the mid- to late 1630s [fig. 4]   [fig. 4] Detail of signature, infrared reflectogram, Jan Miense Molenaer, Self-Portrait as a Lute Player, c. 1636/1637, oil on panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund.[4]  [4]
Dennis P. Weller, personal communication with the author, May 14, 2016. Unfortunately, little of this signature is visible to the naked eye because he scratched into the paint layer to reveal the ground beneath, and that scratching has since been filled in with a darker material that could be paint or old discolored varnish residue.[5]  [5]
See Technical Summary.

The sensitivity with which Molenaer treated the details of playing versus tuning the lute make it likely that the instrument was a real part of his life. Lutes were an integral component of musical culture in seventeenth-century Dutch society, and the inventory of the artist’s possessions made after his death lists a number of instruments, including a violin, two transverse flutes, and three “cyters,” which may refer either to cithers or lutes.[6]  [6]
For the complete inventory of Molenaer’s possessions recorded on Oct. 10, 1668, see Frima Fox Hofrichter, Judith Leyster: A Woman Painter in Holland’s Golden Age (Doornspijk, 1989), 85–103. Additionally, in his musical scenes Molenaer has demonstrated his knowledge of the proper postures and fingering for the lute as prescribed in contemporary instruction.[7]  [7]
For a discussion of lute music and manuals, see especially Jan W. J. Burgers, The Lute in the Dutch Golden Age: Musical Culture in the Netherlands 1580–1670 (Amsterdam, 2013), 89–140; Burgers also discusses the celebrity of lutenists in The Lute in the Dutch Golden Age: Musical Culture in the Netherlands 1580–1670 (Amsterdam, 2013), 51–64. For example, Nicolaes Vallet’s Secretrum musarum (Amsterdam, 1615), a lute manual with sheet music published not in the scholarly Latin, but rather in the French and Dutch vernacular, describes how musicians ought to extend the pinky finger to support the hand, thereby allowing the middle fingers to easily manipulate the strings.[8]  [8]
Vallet’s music and playing instructions are discussed in Louis Peter Grijp, “The Ensemble Music of Nicolaes Vallet,” in Proceedings of the International Lute Symposium Utrecht 1986, ed. Louis Peter Grijp and Willem Mook (Utrecht, 1988), 64–85; Louis Peter Grijp, ed., The Complete Works of Nicolaes Vallet, vol. 3, Secretum Musarum I (Amsterdam, 1615; repr., Utrecht, 1992), xxx; and Jan W. J. Burgers, The Lute in the Dutch Golden Age: Musical Culture in the Netherlands 1580–1670 (Amsterdam, 2013), 140–144. As discussed above, in The Duet Molenaer has positioned himself playing the instrument with his left hand on the fret board and his middle fingers curled in the act of plucking, his pinky finger extended for support—just as Vallet recommended. In the Gallery’s painting, Molenaer originally followed the same convention, but then altered the composition to demonstrate how one ought to tune the instrument by twisting a tuning peg with the left hand while drawing in the pinky of the right hand and extending the middle fingers, also per contemporary manuals.

Apart from demonstrating his familiarity and facility with the instrument, Molenaer may also have chosen to portray himself as a lute player because of music’s many symbolic associations, among which was intellectual activity. As one of the liberal arts, music was highly regarded as an art form in the early modern period and considered an essential component of high education. For painters keen to exalt their craft, music and musical instruments became an important touchstone for comparison between the two art forms.[9]  [9]
See Ivan Gaskell, “Gerrit Dou, His Patrons, and the Art of Painting,” The Oxford Journal 3 (1980): 15–23; Ignacio Lamarque Moreno, “Music and Its Symbolism in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting” (PhD diss., University of Maryland, College Park, 1990), 53–54. Particularly in self-portraiture, painters commonly pictured themselves with or among instruments as well as other emblems of learning—books, globes, plaster casts, naturalia—both reflecting the universality of their knowledge and calling attention to the parallels between their professions, such as their shared need to integrate theory and practice in the act of creation.[10]  [10]
Notable self-portraits that follow such a model include Gerrit Dou, Self-Portrait, c. 1665, Private Collection, Boston; Jan Steen, Self-Portrait, c. 1663–1665, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid; and Frans van Mieris, Self-Portrait of the Artist Holding a Small Painting, c. 1677, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. For the Dou self-portrait, see Ronni Baer, “Self-Portrait,” in Gerrit Dou, 1613–1675, ed. Ronni Baer (New Haven, 2000), 122, no. 29. Musical instruments are also a staple of images of artist studios. See, for example, Jan Miense Molenaer, The Artist’s Studio, 1631, Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; Quiringh van Brekelenkam, The Artist in His Studio, c. 1659, State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg; Frans van Mieris, A Connoisseur in the Artist’s Studio, c. 1655–1657, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden; Gabriel Metsu, Artist Painting a Woman Playing a Cello, whereabouts unknown; Jan Steen, The Drawing Lesson, c. 1665, Getty Museum, Los Angeles; and Johannes Vermeer, The Art of Painting, c. 1666, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. For the Metsu self-portrait, see Franklin W. Robinson, Gabriel Mestu (1629–1667) (New York, 1974), fig. 42.

Along with intelligence, inspiration, and imagination, music, and particularly the lute, was naturally also associated with harmony. The Haarlem printmaker Gillis van Breen (c. 1560–after 1602) articulated the harmonious relationship between men and women through lute imagery in an engraving made circa 1600 after Cornelis Ysbrantsz Cussens’s Allegory of Marriage (Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) that shows a man playing a lute beside a woman playing a violin. Van Breen added an inscription to the image that likens a strong marital relationship to a successful musical duet: “Just as the slenderest string reverberates around the male string, and the melodious strings of the heavy-voice lyre follow, so you, harmonious strings, must accord to the tone of marriage, in which as the consort accepts the commands of her lord.”[11]  [11]
Quoted in Dennis P. Weller, “The Duet,” in Jan Miense Molenaer: Painter of the Dutch Golden Age, ed. Dennis P. Weller (Raleigh, 2002), 137. Even more closely related to Molenaer’s scene is Jacob Cats’s popular emblem “Quid non sentit amore” (Who does not feel love) that shows how the tuning of one lute causes the strings of a partner lute to vibrate in unison just as two lovers’ hearts beat as one [fig. 5]   [fig. 5] Jacob Cats, Quid non sentit amore, engraving from Proteus, ofte, Minne-beelden verandert in sinne-beelden (Rotterdam, 1627), National Gallery of Art Library, David K. E. Bruce Fund.

Shortly before Molenaer painted Self-Portrait as a Lute Player he had become a member of the Haarlem painter’s guild and had also married Judith Leyster.[12]  [12]
Molenaer became a member of the Guild of St. Luke in 1634, though he had been signing and dating works since 1629. He and Leyster posted their wedding bans in Haarlem on May 11, 1636, and were married three weeks later on June 1. For Molenaer’s biography, see Dennis P. Weller, “Jan Miense Molenaer: Painter of the Dutch Golden Age,” in Jan Miense Molenaer: Painter of the Dutch Golden Age, ed. Dennis P. Weller (Raleigh, 2002), 9–25. These developments in his personal life may help explain the focus on the theme of harmony and love in the painting.[13]  [13]
Molenaer had also used the musical motif to suggest a concordant and balanced existence before. In The Duet Molenaer pictures himself and Judith Leyster seated together in a well-appointed interior playing string instruments—he a lute and she a cittern (fig. 1). Dressed in their finest attire with a lap dog curled up at their feet, they gaze out at the viewer as they strum their instruments in unison. In Self-Portrait with Family Members, his brothers and sisters engage in a musical performance that includes voice, cittern, lute, violin, and cello. The group performs in the shadow of two large portraits hanging on the back wall that depict the deceased patriarch and matriarch of the family, Molenaer’s parents, Jan Mientsen and Grietgen Adrianes (fig. 2). The message in both paintings is clear: music expresses the harmonious bond that unites family. Not only does the pochette resting on top of the table beside Molenaer relate to the partner instruments described by Cussens and Cats, but Molenaer’s fixed gaze and calm demeanor also underscore the notions of love and fidelity symbolically linked to the lute. Significantly, Molenaer pays no attention to the array of sumptuous foods, drinking vessels, and smoking implements on the table beside him—items commonly associated with the temptation of sensual pleasures. Instead, he is focused entirely on the task at hand, assuring the viewer of his unwavering dedication to his professional and personal life.

Alexandra Libby

May 7, 2019