Tres cantantes (Alegoría del oído)

Rembrandt was about 18 when he painted this, part of a small series on the five senses that count among the first pictures he ever made. It shows three people singing by candlelight, an older couple and a young man, playing on the Dutch notion that young and old voices never quite match. He made it in Leiden around 1624, the year a severe plague swept the town, which may be why the senses were on his mind. The panel is tiny, smaller than a sheet of paper. Of the five, one is still missing altogether, and another only resurfaced at auction about ten years ago, long mistaken for the work of a minor hand.