Musiciens de rue à la porte

Ochtervelt worked in Rotterdam, and around 1665 he more or less invented a small genre of his own, the entrance-hall scene, where the front door of a rich house becomes a stage. Here two street musicians, one with a violin and one with a hurdy-gurdy, have stopped on the threshold to play. Inside stand a well-off mother, her small child, and a maid. The point of the picture is that meeting of two worlds at the doorway, the comfortable house and the poor street. Watch the mother's hands. She is guiding her young child through the act of dropping a coin to the players outside.