# Musical Scene

- By: Gerrit van Honthorst (Dutch, 1590–1656)
- Date: 1625–55
- Medium: black ink wash over pen and brown ink and black chalk over graphite on gray-brown paper with white heightening, incised
- Classification: Drawing
- Dimensions: Support: 23.3 x 26.8 x 0.3 cm (9 3/16 x 10 9/16 x 1/8 in.); Image: 17.3 x 20.2 cm (6 13/16 x 7 15/16 in.)
- Culture: Netherlands
- Credit line: John L. Severance Fund
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/2019.6)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2019.6/2019.6_web.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

The Utrecht artist Gerrit van Honthorst was internationally known as a portrait painter, but he also gained a reputation as a painter of raucous musical scenes and parties. This drawing was once part of an album of compositional types that the artist showed to prospective patrons. Though the cheerful theme of a man and a woman sharing a song seems innocent, such unions often had amorous or lascivious connotations in 17th-century Holland.