A Woman seated at a Table and a Man tuning a Violin

In December 1770 Louis XV dismissed his chief minister, the Duc de Choiseul, and sent him away to his country estate at Chanteloup. In 1772 Choiseul's pictures were sold in Paris, and this small Dutch interior was among them. It went on to belong to Talleyrand, Napoleon's foreign minister, before it crossed to England and the collection of the prime minister Sir Robert Peel.

What they owned is a room of about 1658. A woman sits at a table in a bright red bodice, caught by the light from the window, music on her lap, looking up with her lips slightly parted, perhaps singing quietly to herself. Behind her a man tunes a violin and looks straight out at us. A viola da gamba lies on the table, and there is no telling which of them plays it. A mirror leans on the windowsill, and the chimneypiece is held up by a carved figure of Atlas, the kind of fitting only a wealthy house could afford.