Self-portrait with madrigal

The young woman at the harpsichord is holding a real song. The open sheet is page 24 of a madrigal book printed in Venice in 1533, and the piece is Verdelot's 'Madonna per voi ardo', 'my lady, I burn for you'. One hand rests on the keys, the other holds the music, and the sidelong glance tells you she worked in front of a mirror. This is Marietta Robusti, the daughter of the Venetian painter Tintoretto, known in her own time as la Tintoretta. Contemporaries praised her for two gifts at once, painting and music, and she put both into a single picture rather than choosing between them. The canvas was bought for the Medici by Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici in 1675, which is how it came to Florence.