Made near Dordrecht 1643 – The Hague 1706

Young woman playing a cittern

Panel
Dated 1685-90
24 x 19 cm
Inv.nr. 101-1946, Cat. nr.148

Signature

Schalcken was famous in his time and worked a.o. for king William III in London. This painting, somewhere in between a true portrait and a genre piece, with its suggestion of erotic overtones, may be an idealized version of Schalcken’s wife, Francoise van Diemen (see her portrait by Schalcken).
A cittern is a kind of flat-backed lute.