A Man and a Woman seated by a Virginal

The virginal in this room carries two lines from the Psalms in Latin. On the lid, In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust, let me never be put to confusion. On the cover over the keys, Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Pious words, in a scene that seems to be heading somewhere else.

A young woman at the keyboard holds out a sheet of music to the man beside her, both of them with their eyes lowered. He answers with a glass of wine. His violin lies on the table, and his bow is nowhere to be seen. On the wall behind them, half hidden by a curtain, hangs one of Metsu's own pictures, a Twelfth Night feast now in Munich, where a drinker in a paper crown celebrates the 6th of January, the rowdy close of the Christmas season. The glass in the young man's hand echoes the one in the painting. Dutch buyers around 1665 were used to this mix, where virtue is preached and a little seduction is played for a smile in the same small panel.

The same instrument appears in other pictures by Metsu, so he may have had a real virginal to work from.