Melpomene, Erato and Polyhymnia

The Hôtel Lambert, on the Île Saint-Louis in Paris, was built in the early 1640s for the financier Jean-Baptiste Lambert. Between 1652 and 1655, when the house belonged to his brother Nicolas, Eustache Le Sueur decorated one of its rooms, the Cabinet of the Muses, and this panel was set into its wooden wall panelling. Three Muses sit together under the trees, Melpomene of tragedy, Erato of love poetry and Polyhymnia of sacred song. One reads from a book of music, one leans on the back of a gilded chair, and one plays a large bass viol. The landscape around them is by another painter, Pierre Patel. The room stayed intact until 1776, when the heirs of a later owner sold its paintings for Louis XVI, and in 1777 a restorer lifted them out of the walls.