Self-Portrait as a Lute Player

Jan Miense Molenaer (c. 1610-1668) was a Dutch Golden Age painter known for his genre scenes of music-making, gambling, and domestic life in the cheerful, narrative manner that distinguishes his work from the more darkly lit genre subjects of the Caravaggists. Self-Portrait as a Lute Player from c. 1637-38 depicts the artist himself playing the lute in the cheerful, narrative manner that distinguishes his best genre scenes. The self-portrait format allows Molenaer to combine genre subject with self-portraiture in a painting that is simultaneously a genre scene of music-making and a personal statement of the artist's identity.

Self-Portrait as a Lute Player is important in Molenaer's oeuvre because it combines genre subject with self-portraiture in a painting that is simultaneously a genre scene of music-making and a personal statement. The lute was a common symbol of the transience of earthly pleasure in Dutch genre painting, and Molenaer's self-portrait as a lute player shows the artist identifying himself with the vanitas subject that is one of the central themes of Dutch genre painting.

Self-Portrait as a Lute Player is Molenaer's genre meets self-portraiture: the artist playing the lute in a painting that is simultaneously a cheerful genre scene and a personal statement of artistic identity. The c. 1637-38 self-portrait combines two genres—music-making and self-portraiture—in a uniquely personal type of Dutch genre painting.