Woman Playing the Lute

From 1931 to 1939 this young woman with her lute was printed on Dutch money. The Netherlands Bank's 100-guilder note, designed by the Amsterdam artist Carel Adolph Lion Cachet, carried her on its front, copied from van Dijk's painting in mirror image. The original is tiny, a panel about 15 by 12 centimetres, painted around 1710 when van Dijk was still working in Middelburg in Zeeland.

In the 18th century it belonged to Govert van Slingelandt, a Hague official and one of the great picture collectors of his day. When his widow sold his paintings in 1768, Prince William V of Orange bought the whole collection at once, lute player included, and the back of the panel still reads Stat, short for Stadhouder, with the number 62. The Mauritshuis owns her today and shows her in the Gallery Prince Willem V, the picture gallery the prince opened to visitors in The Hague in 1774.