Woman Playing a Guitar
ca. 1618
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
42 × 29 7/8 in. (106.5 × 75.8 cm)
Classification
Paintings
Department
European Paintings
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, 2017 Benefit Fund; Lila Acheson Wallace Gift; Mary Trumbull Adams and Victor Wilbour Memorial Funds; Friends of European Paintings and Henry and Lucy Moses Fund Inc. Gifts; Gift of Julia A. Berwind, by exchange; Charles and Jessie Price, Otto Naumann, Mr. and Mrs. Richard L. Chilton Jr., and Sally and Howard Lepow Gifts; Charles B. Curtis Fund; and Theodocia and Joseph Arkus Gift, 2017
Accession Number
2017.242
Tags
About this artwork
This alluring depiction of a woman playing a guitar was painted during Simon Vouet's years in Rome and reveals his interest in the work of Caravaggio, particularly in its dramatic lighting and psychological engagement with the beholder. Created around 1618, the painting exemplifies the tenebrist style that dominated early 17th-century Italian painting. The finely dressed woman appears lost in musical reverie, her guitar positioned prominently in the composition. Women playing guitars have a long...
Art Historical Context
Simon Vouet's *Woman Playing a Guitar*, painted around 1618 during his formative years in Rome, captures moment of intimate musical reverie. This on canvas, measuring 42 × 29 7/8 inches, showcases Vouet's (1590–1649) fascination with Caravaggio's tenebrism—the bold interplay of light and shadow that heightens emotional depth and draws the viewer into the scene. The finely dressed woman, lost in thought as she strums her prominently placed guitar, engages us psychologically, blurring the line between portrait and genre painting. This work exemplifies early 17th-century Italian influences that ...
About the Artist
Simon Vouet · 1590–1649
French painter. Comment on works: Portraits; Religious; Mythology; Allegory