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Emanuel de Witte (1618-1692)
Interior with a woman playing the clavecin to a man in bed. Painted in the 1660s? Canvas, 77.5 × 104.5 cm.

The Netherlands Office for Fine Arts, inv.nr.NK 2685; seized by the Germans from the collection of Otto Lanz, Amsterdam, 1941. On loan to Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam, inv.nr.2313.

De Jongh sees in this painting a demonstration of the healing power of music. An officer tortured by pain – the pain of love – is forced to take to bed in the middle of the day, hoping that the sweet strains of the clavecin will bring him relief. This may be accurate, but it is not an adequate interpretation of the subdued eroticism in the painting, as de Jongh too admits.

What has always fascinated me about the painting is its visual rhythm. Aview into depth – what the Dutch call a doorkijkje, a look from one space into another – is punctuated by grouped strokes of light admitted through large and small windows on the right. They fall on floors which have their own pattern, formed by tiles and floorboards. Squinted at sideways, the light looks like musical notation, evoking the sounds that begin in the front room and carry into the back of the house and beyond. A sense of harmony is created between interior space and the outside world.

Houbraken, vol. 1, p.282. Exhib. cat. Tot lering en vermaak, nr.76. 155