Merry Violinist with Wineglass

Gerard van Honthorst, the leading Dutch Caravaggist, earned the Italian nickname Gherardo delle Notti for his night scenes lit by a single candle. Merry Violinist with Wineglass, painted in 1623 shortly after his return from Rome, belongs to the series of half-length musicians and drinkers through which he carried Caravaggio’s dramatic lighting into the art of the northern Netherlands.