The Lute Player

The Lute Player is among the most elegantly coloured of Orazio Gentileschis single-figure canvases, showing a young woman in a gleaming golden gown turning to tune her instrument while music books and a viol await her. Orazio, the father of Artemisia Gentileschi, was the closest Roman painter to Caravaggio, but where the master pursued dramatic shadow Orazio inclined toward a courtly, luminous clarity. Painted about 1612 to 1620 during his years of international fame, the picture pairs jewelled costume with cool marble and a ruffled white collar, encapsulating the refined prettiness that carried Caravaggism into the great courts of Europe.