Hearing

The music in this painting can be played. Venus sits at the centre with a lute, a cupid holding the book open for her, and a research project at the Complutense University in Madrid went through the instruments and the sheets scattered around them. On the table lies a set of madrigals by Peter Philips, the English composer who served as organist to the archdukes in Brussels. In the foreground, turned toward the viewer, two canons are written out clearly enough to sing, one taking its words from Luke, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it, the other from the Psalms. The harpsichord at the left is an Antwerp instrument, and the scene inside its raised lid is an Annunciation to the Shepherds by Hendrick van Balen, whose original hangs in Gijón, on Spain's northern coast.