Concert (The Theft of the Amulet)

It looks like a musical evening, and it is a con. Honthorst painted it in the 1620s, back in Utrecht after his years in Rome. The young man in yellow sings a duet from the open book. The girl leaning over him rests a hand by his ear, where she is working his earring loose, perhaps a small amulet, which gave the picture its second title. The old woman behind them, finger raised, is her accomplice, and in the gallery's reading she is also going for his purse. The bowl of grapes and peaches on the table nods to Caravaggio's Basket of Fruit in Milan. Some specialists once gave the canvas to the Flemish painter Theodoor Rombouts, who worked in the same manner, and the gallery now keeps it under Honthorst. It hangs in room 14, the Loggia of Lanfranco.