A Young Woman Composing a Piece of Music

In 1768 Prince William V of Orange, the Dutch stadholder, bought an entire private collection in a single deal, the paintings of the Hague official Govert van Slingelandt, and this panel came with it. Six years later the prince opened a gallery on the Buitenhof in The Hague to show his pictures, the first place in the Netherlands where ordinary visitors could walk in and look at art.

The scene itself is a drawing-room concert in the making. A young woman sits writing out a song, a man leans over her shoulder to read what she has put down, and a second woman plays the lute. The Mauritshuis counts it among Metsu's finest works, for the way he paints fabrics and materials.

In 1795 the French confiscated the prince's collection and took it to Paris, and this picture was back in The Hague in 1816.