Orazio Gentileschi

Lomi, Orazio

Florentine, 1563 - 1639

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Italian painter (1563–1639)

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A young woman plays a small pipe organ while a winged angel holds up a piece of sheet music in this horizontal painting. A strong light source illuminates the scene from our right, creating deep shadows in the dark background. Both the woman and angel have pale skin, flushed cheeks, and light brown hair. Shown from the knees up and taking up the left half of the painting, the woman’s body is angled to our right as she sits at the organ, which is near the right edge of the composition. Her hair is pulled back into a braid, and wisps fall on her forehead. Her skin is smooth, and her head tilts down toward the organ. Her cherry-red dress has a squared neckline and olive-green sleeves over a white shirt. The voluminous sleeves are pushed back over her forearms as she rests her fingertips on the keys of the organ. Gazing toward the woman, the angel has short, curly hair, silvery gray wings, and wears a topaz-blue garment. Two lines of music on the paper the angel holds have notes written in and one staff is empty. The small organ is angled away from us so we see one narrow end and the row of low pipes along its back. The dark brown background lightens behind the young woman’s head.
Orazio Gentileschi, Giovanni Lanfranco, Saint Cecilia and an Angel, c. 1617/1618 and c. 1621/1627, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.73

Saint Cecilia and an Angel

Orazio Gentileschi, Giovanni Lanfranco · c. 1617/1618 and c. 1621/1627 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1961.9.73

Facing away from us, a young woman with pale skin, wearing a golden yellow gown, leans her head down toward the lute she holds nearly upright in her lap in this horizontal painting. She sits near the right edge of the painting so her body faces the table beyond her, to our left. Her body is angled away from us but she turns her head so we see her in profile, facing our left. She tips her head to put her ear next to the lute, and she looks down and off to our left with brown eyes under thin, slightly arched brows. She has a straight nose, smooth, flushed cheeks, and her coral-pink lips are closed. Her dark blond hair is parted down the middle and pulled back under long braids looped around the back and over the top of her head. Light reflects off her hair and off the short, loose strands near the ear we can see. Her long yellow dress has a full skirt. The stiff bodice is laced up the sides and hooks over the shoulders, over a voluminous, bright white blouse. The sleeve we can see is pushed up over her forearm. Her seat is draped in crimson-red, velvety fabric. She holds the neck of the lute up high with her left hand, her fingers pressing the strings, so she brings the rounded body of the instrument up to her ear. In front of her, the table is draped with fringed, olive-green fabric. A violin made with blond wood lies on the table with the neck stretching toward us. There is also the violin bow and at least three wooden recorders on the table. One book of music is open so the pages fall over the edge of the table, near the woman. One other book of music at the back of the table is held open with a recorder. The feet of the table and the ankles of the woman are cut off by the bottom edge of the painting. The background is dark, earth brown except for a diagonal shaft of light across the top left corner of the composition, presumably from a high window in the wall out of our view.
Orazio Gentileschi, The Lute Player, c. 1612/1620, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1962.8.1

The Lute Player

Orazio Gentileschi · c. 1612/1620 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1962.8.1

Johann Bernard, Querulas praetentat pollice cordas (The Lute Player), 1802, mezzotint on wove paper, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 2003.78.1

Querulas praetentat pollice cordas (The Lute Player)

Johann Bernard · 1802 · mezzotint on wove paper ·  Accession ID  2003.78.1

Anonymous Artist, The Lute Player, 18th century, pen and brown ink with brown wash on laid paper, Gift of David Rust, 1964.3.1

The Lute Player

Anonymous Artist · 18th century · pen and brown ink with brown wash on laid paper ·  Accession ID  1964.3.1

Bibliography

1981

  • Barroero, Liliano. "Orazio Gentileschi, 1599." Antologia di Belle Arti 5/19-20 (1981): 169-175.

  • Bissell, R. Ward. Orazio Gentileschi and the Poetic Tradition in Caravaggesque Painting. University Park, Pennsylvania, 1981.

1987

  • Pizzorusso, Claudio. "Rivedendo il Gentileschi nelle Marche." Notizie da Palazzo Albani 16 (1987): 57-75.

1996

  • De Grazia, Diane, and Eric Garberson, with Edgar Peters Bowron, Peter M. Lukehart, and Mitchell Merling. Italian Paintings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 95-96.