Detail of A Musician and His Daughter by De Keyser in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 2010

Artist: Thomas de Keyser (Dutch, 1596/97–1667)

Title: A Musician and His Daughter

Date: 1629

Medium: Oil on wood

Dimensions: 29 1/2 x 20 3/4 in. (74.9 x 52.7 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Anonymous Gift, 1964

Accession Number: 64.65.4


Gallery Label:

De Keyser was the most prominent portraitist in Amsterdam until Rembrandt arrived there in the early 1630s. Both painters employed narrative ideas—here, probably, that of a music lesson—to animate the figures and to balance the concentration upon costume details. De Keyser, however, never tempered his penchant for precise patterns, which in this case exquisitely compensates for the artist's characteristically awkward perspective scheme.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/collection_database/europe...