The Strolling Musicians
c. 1635
Medium
Etching in black on tan laid paper
Dimensions
Plate/image: 13.9 × 11.6 cm (5 1/2 × 4 5/8 in.); Sheet: 14.1 × 17.1 cm (5 9/16 × 6 3/4 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
29204
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
In this cozy scene, two humble street performers serenade a peasant family with a hurdy-gurdy and bagpipes, instruments long associated with folk music and itinerant musicians. The older man cranks the wheel of the hurdy-gurdy, which functions like a mechanized fiddle, while playing the instrument’s keyboard. The younger man produces a melody by fingering the holes on the bagpipe’s lower pipe while the two upper pipes play single continuous bass notes. Their tune has elicited a mixed response: t...
About the Artist
Rembrandt van Rijn · 1606–1669
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606–1669) stands as one of the greatest visual artists in the history of Western art and the most important Dutch painter of the 17th century. Born in Leiden to a prosperous miller's family, Rembrandt transformed painting through his revolutionary use of light and shadow, his psychological depth in portraiture, and his elevation of etching to a fine art. His approx...