Published to accompany the exhibition Vermeer and Music: The Art of Love and Leisure at the National Gallery, London 26 June – 8 September 2013.

Music was among the most popular motifs in paintings of the Dutch ‘Golden Age’. This attractive, accessible book presents a selection of seventeenth-century Dutch paintings with musical themes, juxtaposed with contemporary instruments and popular songbooks. By offering an overview of musical entertainment in the Dutch Republic during the seventeenth century, and outlining some of the diverse connotations of music in art, Vermeer and Music is a new insight into the significance of these popular images.

Five magnificent paintings by Johannes Vermeer – the National Gallery’s A Young Woman standing at a Virginal and A Young Woman seated at a Virginal, The Music Lesson (The Royal Collection), Young Woman seated at a Virginal (private collection), and The Guitar Player, on loan from Kenwood House, London – form the heart of this book. Vermeer and Music enhances our appreciation of these extraordinary paintings – as well as related pictures by other Dutch masters – with an in-depth exploration of their subject matter.

This book is generously illustrated with details of paintings and musical instruments, showcasing the extraordinary craftsmanship of these works. Vermeer and Music also features details from a selection of seventeenth-century songbooks, charming volumes filled with love songs, poems, and illustrations of amorous duets. Vermeer and Music will appeal to anyone who loves music, or the art of Vermeer and his illustrious contemporaries.

View spreads of this book (2 MB PDF)