THE LUTE IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY DUTCH BROTHELS: A STUDY OF
SELECTED GENRE PAINTINGS
By:
Alex D. McAllister
Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Mass Communication
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Bachelor of Arts in Music with Honors
University of North Carolina at Wilmington
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Degree of Master of Music in Music History at the
University of South Carolina at Columbia
School of Music
2010
Accepted by:
Dr. Peter Hoyt, Director of Thesis
Dr. Julie Hubbert, Reader
Dr. Carlton Hughes, Reader
Dr. Sarah Williams, Reader
Dr. Tim Mousseau, Dean of The Graduate School
UMI Number: 1479453
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ii DEDICATION
For my four favorite patrons: Mom, Dad, Dr. Betty, and my lovely wife Stacy.
Thank you all for the support and love you have provided me with during my academic
endeavors in music and the arts.
iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to everyone who has been of
assistance during the course of my work on this thesis. It has been both exciting and
intellectually stimulating to write, and it is only the beginning of what I hope will become
a larger project. When I began graduate studies, I never imagined writing an R-rated (for
nudity and sexual content) thesis, but with guidance from one of the most creative minds
I have ever met, it became possible: thank you, Dr. Peter Hoyt, for your assistance
throughout the course of this project. I offer my deep gratitude to Dr. Julie Hubbert for
all of your assistance during the organizational process, as well as your continuing
inspiration in the study of music history. I would also like to thank Dr. Sarah Williams
for sharing her extensive knowledge and expertise in early music. The music history
faculty at USC enjoys a diversity that has allowed me to grow as a music historian.
Furthermore, I have also been fortunate to observe a variety of teaching styles, some of
which I hope to emulate.
I extend my best wishes to Professor Jennifer Ottervik—your bibliographical
knowledge and library expertise will be missed at USC. Thank you also to Dr. Sam
Douglas, one of the most humble yet effective professors I have ever known. Many
thanks to Professor Christopher Berg for his extensive knowledge of early music and
string instruments.
iv Finally, I would like to thank Dr. Carlton Hughes. Our weekly meetings and
conversations about Dutch genre paintings have been both intriguing and interesting. I
am extremely grateful for your assistance, your positive demeanor, and your generosity in
taking the time to not only work with a music student, but to offer your vast knowledge
of art history in bridging the gaps that often separate the humanities.
v ABSTRACT
THE LUTE IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY DUTCH BROTHELS: A STUDY OF
SELECTED GENRE PAINTINGS
Alex D. McAllister
A number of important genre paintings from the Dutch Golden Age represent
brothel scenes. These include Dirck van Baburen’s The Procuress (1622), Hendrik Pot’s
Vanity (c. 1633), Nicolaus Knüpfer’s Brothel Scene (c. 1650), and Frans van Mieris’s
Brothel Scene (c. 1658). Many of these—indeed all of the works just cited—not only
incorporate the lute as an important aspect of the sex trade in the Low Countries, but also
provide clues about speelhuizen, the underground “music halls where whores plied
openly.”
The significance of these representations has not been well understood. Wayne
Franits, for example, in his magisterial Dutch Seventeenth-Century Genre Painting,
minimizes the importance of musical instruments as represented in Dutch genre paintings
of the time. This thesis, however, finds that such an attitude underemphasizes the
important symbolic signification of the lute. By focusing on an important painting by
van Mieris, as well as considering additional pieces, this study will demonstrate the
importance of the lute in the seventeenth-century brothel. This thesis will also attempt to
enrich the understanding of Dutch culture in the fields of art history and musicology.
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION…………………………………………………………………………..iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………..iv
ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………..vi
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS……………………………...…………...………………..viii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION……………………………………………..…….1
CHAPTER TWO: THE ROLE OF THE LUTE IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY
DUTCH GENRE PAINTINGS…………………………………......20
FRANS VAN MIERIS’ BROTHEL SCENE…...………………………………..22
CHAPTER THREE: MUSIC IN THE DUTCH BROTHEL………...........……………30
DIRCK VAN BABUREN’S THE PROCURESS….…………...………………..33
NICOLAUS KNÜPFER’S BROTHEL SCENE........................................………47
CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………...……………..51
ILLUSTRATIONS………………………....................………………………………....54
BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………….62
vii ILLUSTRATIONS
GENRE PAINTINGS (following page 55)
I.
Hendrik Pot, Vanity, c. 1633. Haarlem, Frans Halsmuseum.
II.
Gabriel Metsu, The Prodigal Son, 1640s. St. Petersburg, The Hermitage.
III.
Frans van Mieris, Brothel Scene, 1658. The Hague, Mauritshuis.
IV.
Jan Steen, The Doctor and His Patient, date unknown. Amsterdam,
Rijksmuseum.
V.
Dirck van Baburen, The Procuress, 1622. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.
VI.
Gerrit van Honthorst, Supper Party, c. 1619. Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi.
VII.
Gerrit van Honthorst, The Procuress, 1625. Utrecht, Centraal Museum.
VIII.
Nicolaus Knüpfer, Brothel Scene, c. 1650. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum.
viii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
During the seventeenth century, the region corresponding to present-day
Netherlands experienced an extraordinary growth in the popularity of art now known as
“genre painting.” In contrast to the mythological and allegorical canvases that sought to
glorify the aristocracy, the purpose of a genre painting was to portray a scene from the
daily activities of Dutch citizens. Unlike the allegorical works that were marketed
primarily to the upper classes, such paintings were purchased by both wealthy and
middle-class patrons. Prominent among the daily activities of the Dutch was musicmaking, particularly with the lute. Painters such as Frans van Mieris, Dirck van Baburen,
Judith Leyster, Hendrick ter Brugghen, and Johannes Vermeer painted the lute
frequently. From aristocratic palace rooms to the local tavern, the lute appears in many
locations—including brothels. Some of the most common titles from these scenes
included “merry company,” “garden party,” “courtyard,” “concert,” and “brothel scene.”
Brothels were very much a part of everyday Dutch life during the seventeenth century.
The inclusion of representations of brothels may be somewhat surprising, and the
attention paid to prostitution by painters suggests a sensibility that may now be quite
foreign.
The brothel during this period was an accepted part of Dutch culture. In
important Dutch ports like Amsterdam, some prostitutes would dress in the finest
garments and approach sailors fresh off the boats. Amsterdam grew so quickly as a
powerful center of commerce that it became the third largest city in Europe by the
seventeenth century.1 The procuress, or “madame,” earned profits by marketing the
younger women and handling administrative functions such as bartering higher prices for
her girls, dealing with any outstanding debts owed to her, as well as negotiating with
police who occasionally would levy “fines on keepers for fights and irregularities that
occurred in their establishments.”2 In exchange for their services, the prostitutes were
allowed to live in the brothels and keep a small portion of the money earned.
Lotte van de Pol provides a rich source of information regarding Dutch
prostitution and women during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Her book not
only considers prostitution and the workings of such a business, but also presents much
information about the involvement of music and speelhuizen, which were music halls
where prostitutes worked.3 Van de Pol illustrates that each prostitute had a story to tell,
most likely of misfortune and destitution, and she also discusses how women immigrants
wound up in the sex trade in Amsterdam. One story tells of Maria de Vries, a nineteenyear-old from the Dutch region of Frisia.4 The account was taken from an eighteenthcentury criminal court hearing in The Hague on Jan. 9, 1786. Vries’s mother and father
1
, Joaneath A. Spicer, ed., Masters of Light: Dutch Painters in Utrecht During the Golden Age
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997), 247. The book cites Amsterdam as the third largest city
following London and Paris.
2
Lotte C. van de Pol, Het Amsterdams hoerdom: Prostitutie in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw
(Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek, 1996), 498.
3
Ibid.
4
Lotte C. van de Pol and Erika Kuijpers, eds., “Poor Women’s Migration to the City: The
Attraction of Amsterdam Health Care and Social Assistance in Early Modern Times,” in Journal of Urban
History 32, no. 44 (2005), 44-45. Pol states that Frisia was located in the northern province of the Dutch
Republic.
2 died while she was young, and her stepmother apparently took the girl to Amsterdam,
where she found herself swept into a life of prostitution:
She started a coffeehouse and Maria helped her. The stepmother, however,
met a new man, who threw the girl out, telling her to find a place as a servant.
Maria subsequently met the proverbial wicked procuress and soon found herself a
prostitute in a closed brothel. She lived as a prisoner there but managed to
escape. She fled Amsterdam and went to The Hague, where she again worked as
a prostitute in a brothel. The next stage in her Harlot’s Progress was contracting
syphilis. Her madam fired her and gave her a guilder in traveling money to return
to Amsterdam and have herself cured in the Gasthuis, the city hospital. But Maria
did not dare to return to Amsterdam; she was too afraid of the brothel keeper she
had escaped from and to whom she was still in debt. She returned to Frisia
instead, where she worked as an agricultural laborer. In the autumn, when the
harvest was over and it was getting cold, Maria drifted back to Holland. Where
else but in a prosperous city of Holland could she expect to find work, help, or,
more important, treatment for her illness? She went to The Hague and after a few
freezing nights on the streets gave herself up to the police, in the hope of thus
being provided with shelter, food, and medical care.5
The story of Maria de Vries is one of thousands that ended up being documented by the
courts or marriage and divorce registers. Seeking free medical care was one of the
greatest reasons many of these women, especially those who were pregnant, migrated to
Amsterdam.
The port city was an extremely logical destination for these girls, as commerce
brought not only goods, but numerous immigrants and provincials. By 1700, the
population reached 200,000. Author Maarten Prak states the Low Countries were “by far
the most urbanized region of Europe, followed at some distance by Northern Italy.”6
There were twenty-one cities with at least 10,000 inhabitants, and Prak said this is
5
Ibid.
6
Maarten Prak, The Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2005), 251.
3 remarkable considering England, being thrice more populated, only had eleven cities with
that many citizens. Amsterdam’s total population estimate in 1650 was approximately
150,000.7 The population size was modest considering the ongoing Eighty Years’ War
the Dutch republics fought against Philip II of Spain. The city’s growth, following the
Twelve Years’ Truce from 1609 to 1621, is attributed to the powerful position it took in
the shipping industry.
A memorandum signed by Amsterdam merchants in 1629 stated, with a note of
satisfaction, ‘that by virtue of our good management and shrewdness throughout
the Truce we have driven the ships of all other countries out of the water, attracted
nearly all the business from other countries, and served the whole of Europe with
our ships.’8
Clearly the Amsterdam merchants had strong insight and knowledge in the
commercial shipping industry and these qualities led to the advantageous monopoly that
continued until 1700. What was true around 1630 continued for the next several decades
and Amsterdam’s strong foothold on the shipping industry allowed the city to continue to
grow well into the eighteenth century as it became “the richest city in the richest nation in
the world, with a standard of living higher than elsewhere in Europe.”9 Immigrants came
from all across Europe including: Germany, France, Sweden, England, and a smaller
amount of migrants from Italy, Russia, and Poland.10 Other historians argue that
Amsterdam would not have survived without so many immigrants because it also
7
Ibid., 105.
8
Ibid., 9.
9
Klaske Muizelaar and Derek Phillips, Picturing Men and Women in the Dutch Golden Age:
Painting and People in Historical Perspective (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 11.
10
Ibid.
4 suffered great losses of its populace due to plagues and deaths in the dangerous naval
professions such as whaling and fishing.11
Maritime commerce is discussed by Prak in his book titled The Dutch Republic in
the Seventeenth Century. Prak presents information about the economy, explaining that
three main waterways allowed for incredible growth in the area now known as the
Netherlands.12 These three rivers in the Northern Netherlands provided a more efficient
method in which to transport cargo, thereby avoiding the more costly transfer of goods on
land. Prak argues that the Meuse, Rhine, and Scheldt rivers determined the Dutch way of
business, which eventually allowed the Dutch economy to flourish because of advances
in maritime trade.13 Advancements in trade caused rapid economic growth for port cities
such as Amsterdam, and this entailed an influx of both goods and population that
supported prostitution.
The influx included many women who hoped to find gainful employment in what
was now the center of commerce, Amsterdam, but as it was commonly the case, most
women found scarce economic opportunities. Thousands of women traveled from all
over Europe to attempt to make a living, arriving in Amsterdam speaking different
languages, wearing clothes different from the locals, and coming from completely
different traditions. Economic forces left women few options and van de Pol gives two
routes to the profession: “those who said that they had come to Amsterdam first and
11
Ibid. It is noted that plague epidemics took place in Amsterdam in 1655, 1663, 1664 (killing
one in every eight Amsterdammers), and from 1602-75.
12
Prak, The Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century, 89-91.
13
Ibid., 90-91.
5 became prostitutes afterwards, and those who had arrived as prostitutes or with the
intention of becoming one.”14
In Amsterdam, there was a “large surplus of women throughout the seventeenth
century, with four women for every three men” as one scholar states.15 Because of this,
most female immigrants were at a great disadvantage because the local men preferred to
only marry the native Dutch women.16 Thus many women, having no hope of marriage
and experiencing difficulty in finding employment, resorted to prostitution. When the
prostitutes were not seeking customers around the busy port, they found work as servants
in speelhuizen (music halls), inns, and also in the taverns. The milieu of prostitutes is
now documented in court accounts, law records, and in genre paintings that portray such
scenes from everyday life.
Many of these genre paintings featured musical instruments, and so it was also
common to find titles such as: “Duet,” “Musical Company of Gentlemen and Ladies,” “A
Woman Writing Music,” or “The Lute Player.” Along with bagpipes, the violin,
harpsichord, and hurdy-gurdy were also common instruments portrayed in the Dutch
genre paintings of the Baroque era. The lute was one of the most popular instruments
found in genre paintings, especially those depicting brothels, and these artworks provide
clues as to the importance of the lute in Dutch culture.
A pear-shaped instrument constructed of wood and gut strings, the lute was
commonly found throughout Europe. Often considered the predecessor of the modern
14
Pol and Kuijpers, “Poor Women’s Migration,” 53.
15
Muizelaar and Phillips, Picturing Men and Women in the Dutch Golden Age, 13.
16
Ibid.
6 classical guitar, the lute’s delicate sound and warm resonant qualities pass through an
intricately woven sound hole. This beautiful, sensual sound made it extremely popular in
a number of intimate settings as well as a favorite instrument of composers during the
seventeenth century. Some of the notable composers from the Lowlands include
Emanuel Adriaenssen (1554-1604), Joachim van den Hove (1567-1620), Gregorio Huet
(1550-1616), Philip van Wilder (1500-1553) and Nicolas Vallet (1583-1642). The lute
was a popular instrument as evidenced by the affinity that Constantijn Huygens (15961687) had for it. Huygens, a Dutch poet, diplomat, and amateur musician, added the lute
to his regimen of activities, and he studied under Jeronimus van Someren (1580-1651), a
lute player in the Hague.17 The more serious composers, such as Vallet, published
expensive books of their lute works.
During his time, Vallet was known as a teacher and a performer who would have
been hired to play at weddings, parties, and other social gatherings.18 This is evidenced
not only by contracts he used to hire other musicians for events he had scheduled, but
also by a publication from 1640 of “two instrumental collections with French and English
song and dance tunes popular in the Netherlands.”19 Musicologist Charles Warren Fox
describes some of Vallet’s contracts that can be found in Amsterdam archives:
17
Rudolf A. Rasch, s.v. “Constantijn Huygens,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians, 2nd ed., (MacMillan Publishers Ltd, 2001), 12:6-7.
18
Charles Warren Fox, “Nicolas Vallet and His Lute Music,” in Bulletin of the American
Musicological Society, 4 (1940), 12. Vallet was the leader of a band that performed at festivities and other
functions.
19
Paul-Andrè Gaillard and Richard Freedman. s.v. “Nicolas Vallet,” in The New Grove
Dictionary, (2001), 26: 220-221.
7 Some of these were published by Scheurleer and from them we learn, among
other things, that Vallet was in Amsterdam at least by 1614, that he was active as
a teacher of the lute, headed a band of musicians which played at weddings and
other festivities, and established a dancing school. A number of his pupils and
associates were English.20
Vallet’s musical influences included not only English composers, but French as well as
the most famous local Dutch musician of the time, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. Vallet
arranged several works by Sweelinck including variations on popular keyboard music.
Warren also cites a few Vallet music collections, the first is known as the Paridisus
Musicus, which he said
Indicates clearly the international scope of the work, the musical styles of which
include songs from various countries, dance movements (allemandes, branles,
galliardes, pavanes, etc.), contrapuntal fantasias, preludes, and titled pieces, some
of which have definite programmatic character, and the pieces ranging in
difficulty from exceedingly simple pieces, intended for beginners, to such
elaborate pieces as a lute-transcription of a chanson by Claude Le Jeune.21
Vallet also composed settings of the Huguenot psalms for lute and voice according to
Warren, who attributes such works with a higher level of “taste.” Many of Vallet’s
works were composed for simple homophonic texture or in the form of contrapuntal
preludes. Warren describes Vallet’s lute works as being very similar to the compositional
style found in the organ during the period:
Vallet obviously did not favor i6th-century polyphonic style; yet he does not fill his
works with the superficial ornamentation characteristic of the French lutenists a
little later. His compositions and arrangements are, for the most part, definitely
tonal rather than modal; his use of imitation and other contrapuntal devices is
carefully adjusted to the instrument; harmonically his modulations are often
20
Fox, “Nicolas Vallet and His Lute Music,” 12.
21
Ibid.
8 surprising; the spacing of parts contributes not a little to the outstanding clarity and
neatness of his style.22
Clearly an influence from the French lute song also had an affect on Dutch composers.
Carla Zecher, in an article on French love poetry, defined a lute poem as “a short lyric
text in which the poetic subject personifies the lute as a muse, companion, or
confidant.”23 Zecher, in discussing the associations of poetry with the lute, noted that
during the sixteenth century, lute poems were “gendered as masculine or feminine.”24
Male and female poets therefore made use of lute imagery in different ways.
Their references to the lute are informed by the gendered culture surrounding the
instrument in this period and by the etiquette and technicalities of lute playing.
Even more than painters and engravers, poets could invest the lute with human
qualities, conflating it with bodies and body parts. It could thus be adapted to
serve a variety of amorous scenarios.25
Although Zecher makes an interesting statement, the idea that painters are less apt in
portraying the human qualities of a lute should be considered in the context of paintings
later in this paper. One will find that painters such as Frans van Mieris are able to
express all of the associations Zecher mentions in the depiction of a lute.
Though the lute had an important role in French culture, it was also a major part
of Dutch society. It is likely that some of Vallet’s lute music would have been performed
in the speelhuizen and brothels during this time. Michael Lowe has written about the
22
Ibid., 12-13.
23
Carla Zecher, “The Gendering of the Lute in Sixteenth-Century French Love Poetry,” in
Renaissance Quarterly 53, no. 3 (2000), 769.
24
Ibid.
25
Ibid.
9 development of the lute during the seventeenth century and his article also reveals
influences from both France and Italy. Lowe studied some Franco-Flemish composers
from the early seventeenth century, such as René Mesangeau, Pierre Gautier, and
Belleville, and he found that most of their music was written for ten-course lutes. In
addition, Lowe wrote that the backs of most of the lutes he studied were made of yew,
and other lutes featured a “long, slender shape which we associate with the Bolognamade lutes of the first half of the sixteenth century, particularly the work of Laux Maler
and Hans Frei.”26 Lowe explains that French lute players sought the best instruments
from Bologna, and their attractiveness towards those particular instruments carried over
into Dutch society:
The French, then, were buying up as many of the old Bologna lutes as possible
and altering them to suit the needs of the time. These old Bologna lutes were
highly valued much as are Cremona violins today, and interesting light is thrown
on this desire for old instruments by the correspondence between Jacques Gautier
and Constantijn Huyghens. Huyghens is asking Gautier to find him a lute by
Laux Maler, and Guatier says they are difficult to find, estimating that there are
probably only around fifty left, and not even six in England. The estimate of fifty
surviving lutes by Maler in the year 1647/8, even allowing for a degree of
inaccuracy, is itself indicative of the alarming rate of destruction of the
instruments in Maler’s workshop at the time of his death.27
The fact that a Dutch diplomat such as Huyghens sought the finest Bolognese
instruments could suggest that there was a high level of appreciation for a quality lute.
We know about the lute’s place in musical culture because several lute makers lived
throughout the Lowlands. While information about these builders is not abundant, some
26
Michael Lowe, “The Historical Development of the Lute in the Seventeenth Century,” in The
Galpin Society Journal 29 (1976), 13-14.
27
Ibid., 14-15.
10 records do exist. David Janszoon Padbrué (c.1553-1635), for example, was a Dutch
lutenist, composer, and singer, described on a marriage certificate from 1587 as also
“master of music and as a lute maker.”28 Lute making records also reveal the lute’s
popularity in terms of the number of instruments built and their price. The costs of these
instruments varied depending on size and the amount of ornamentation requested by the
customer. To include an inlayed pearl teardrop, or heart shape on the body of a lute
would have added to the price. Depending on the luthier’s selection of materials, which
may have included ivory, pearl, and various woods, an elaborately decorated lute could
have cost an exorbitant amount. Some of these ornamental features on expensive lutes
were reproduced in paintings by Dutch artists of the period. In The Procuress, which is
on display at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Dirck van Baburen paints the prostitute
with a lute that features a pearl inlay. This detail suggests that much money was
sometimes involved in the sex trade business.
For centuries the lute has often been considered a sensual instrument, both in its
shape and sound. It has also been described in gendered terms, and there are several
references comparing the lute’s construction to the figure of a woman’s body.29 In fact,
Dutch society defines the word luit, or lute, “as a vulgar reference to a woman’s
sexuality.”30 Historian Otto Naumann provides some insight on the lute’s symbolic
meaning in his essay titled “Questions of Understanding”:
28
P. Andriessen, s.v. “David Janszoon Padbrué.” in The New Grove Dictionary, (2001), 18: 869.
29
Zecher, “The Gendering of the Lute,” 769-791.
30
Henry M. Luttikhuizen, A Moral Compass: Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Painting in the
Netherlands (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 1999), 72.
11 Lutes figure in numerous paintings and prints from the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries either as signs of intimacy, whether present or future, and specifically as
references to women or the female genitals. ‘To strike the lute’ (De luit slaan)
was an expression for sexual intercourse.31
Another important part of the monograph, which features Naumann’s essay, is the
description of van Mieris’s Brothel Scene. The editor of the text, Quentin Buvelot,
provides his detailed interpretation of the animated portrait, yet the only mention of the
lute is that it “could refer to love.”32 Although there are several sources containing
information regarding seventeenth-century Dutch genre paintings, few give any
consideration to the importance of the lute and its sexual representation.
Eddy de Jongh is a notable authority on Dutch genre paintings in the seventeenth
century, and he is one of the few authors that has addressed these issues. In Questions of
Meaning: Theme and motif in Dutch Seventeenth-Century Painting, de Jongh puts forth
his beliefs about meaning and interpretation of various objects within a painting. In
discussing the lute depicted in Gerard van Honthorst’s Procurement Scene (1625) he
notes that
This lute represents not just itself but also refers to the sexuality of the young
prostitute holding it. In a nutshell, the instrument veils the ultimate point of the
encounter.33
By concluding that the lute represents the sexuality of the woman depicted, de Jongh
suggests that great importance was placed on the lute and what it represents. It is clear
31
Quentin Buvelot, ed., Frans van Mieris: 1635-1681 (Mauritshuis, The Hague: Royal Picture
Gallery, 2005), 55-56.
32
Ibid., 128.
33
Eddy de Jongh, Questions of Meaning: Theme and Motif in Dutch Seventeenth-Century
Painting, trans. and ed. by Michael Hoyle (Leiden: Primavera Press, 2000), 16.
12 that Honthorst has painted the lute in a very specific manner. The bottom of the lute rests
on the young prostitute’s lap as she grasps the neck of the instrument and directs it
toward the suitor. The placement of the lute in this artwork, as well as its placement in
all other genre paintings, is central to an interpretation. With most of the literature,
however, comments regarding the lute and its sexual representation remain brief and
generalized.
“Lutes are typically depicted in painted brothel scenes, but the instrument was
also commonly associated with courtship rituals,” one historian states.34 Both men and
women played the lute, but more frequently, women can be found performing in Dutch
genre paintings of the seventeenth century. The physical shape of the instrument itself is
suggestively gendered. The curvature and pear-shaped body of the lute portray the hips
of a woman. Some have made even stronger comparisons such as the sound hole, which
in Dutch culture lead to the translation of the word luit as a reference to vagina.35 It is no
wonder why this magnificent instrument became a favorite of one of the most important
movements in art. Lust and sexual promiscuity were popular subjects for artists of the
Dutch Golden Age because they reflected the concerns of society during the period.
Genre paintings often depict representations of another common category of art
known as vanitas. These works, associated with still life paintings, were painted as early
as 1603 by Jacques de Gheyn II (1565-1629), and were highly sought after works in the
34
Luttikhuizen, A Moral Compass, 72.
35
Zecher, “The Gendering of the Lute,” 774. Another good reference for the term luit as a
“vulgar reference to a woman’s sexuality” can be found in Luttikhuizen, A Moral Compass: Seventeenth
and Eighteenth-Century Paintings in the Netherlands. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.,
1999: 72.
13 late 1620s in Leiden.36 Still life paintings depict inanimate objects, each with its own
meaning. Skulls are commonly found and represent the transience of life, as well as
musical instruments and scores, which may embody brevity and passing of time. In Peter
Sutton’s Northern European Paintings, he explains that “in their purest form, vanitas still
lives were designed to make the observer contemplate the brevity of life, the frailty of
man, and the vanity of all worldly things.”37
Often Dutch genre painters used vanitas ideas to enhance their works. One
example is Hendrik Pot’s Vanity (c.1633), which portrays a stark contrast between the
older procuress and the young prostitute [Fig. 1]. The transience of life is symbolized by
the skull the procuress holds up next to the courtesan’s head. This is one of several
pairings that contrasts the lively with the dead, the light with dark, and the open with
closed. The skull is a common feature of the vanitas genre, as is the music score on a
table, and the lute, which Pot has painted face down on a bench. The viewer may note a
modulation of colors from lighter (left) to darker (right). The dark silhouette near the
center could be interpreted as a collection of garments, perhaps, but when looked at
closely, one may find that the black figure suggests a shrouded person. The jaunty hat on
the ground is echoed by another, now painted in black as it hangs on the edge of a chair.
A necklace hangs just below the hat and a dress, or cloak, appears to have been placed on
the chair. The final component of this dark ensemble seems to be a lute case, which—
like the lute itself on the far right—is placed face down. Great attention should be paid to
36
Peter C. Sutton, Northern European Paintings in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia,
PA: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1990), 234.
37
Ibid.
14 the procuress’s left arm, which provides an exact silhouette of the angles that Pot uses to
portray the lute and its case. This process of visual rhyming is also seen in other details.
The painting’s brighter colors are best represented in the lute, in which the wood possibly
made of yew, reveals an almost shiny varnish on the backside. The prostitute’s expensive
dress echoes the ribs of the lute’s back, and Pot ensured this association by painting the
stripes on her dress in rounded forms. The instrument directs the viewer’s eye toward the
center of the painting where the procuress holds the foreboding symbol next to the
prostitute’s head.
The artist further emphasizes the vanitas genre with the common features of such
works, such as the letter (possibly from a lover or client) that the courtesan holds loosely
in her right hand. These emblems work to reinforce the central theme: even the goldcolored hat with a feather and the open lid of a jewelry chest point toward the lute case.
Providing further contrast, the jewelry chest in the foreground, once open, remains shut in
the larger trunk found in the background. The finery of hats strewn about the room, and a
selection of jewelry provides further support that this painting is a brothel scene.38 The
brightly painted lute and the black case become part of a larger ensemble of objects used
by the prostitute that Pot uses to recall the inevitable end of life. In this example, as in
several other brothel scenes, the lute is central to the interpretation, and Pot has used it to
provide strong emphasis on the transience of the pleasures of the world.
38
Martha Hollander discusses another vanitas that is suggestive of the brothel in which a mirror is
the main emblematic focus. It is also a work by Hendrik Pot titled Merry Company (c.1635). See Martha
Hollander, Entrance for the Eyes: Space & Meaning in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2002), 97. In addition to its sexual associations with prostitutes, however,
the lute was also commonly painted in scenes of chaste women, and one can easily interpret the instrument
as signifying temptations and the possible results from degenerate behavior that may arise when playing the
lute.
15 Despite the often “low” subject matter, these paintings appealed to all economic
strata and were purchased by both the wealthy and middle class. An affluent family
typically owned fifty or more paintings, which were hung in various rooms throughout
the house.39 Many of the most well-respected Dutch families, such as Adolf Visscher and
Louise Blaeu, acquired paintings of brothel scenes. Visscher was a successful
businessman in the city of Amsterdam and Blaeu was the daughter of a notable
cartographer. Klaske Muizelaar and Derek Phillips have described their collection:
In the zaal, the room holding their most valuable paintings, the couple displayed a
depiction of The Prodigal Son by Gabriel Metsu. Visscher’s painting was
probably a version of a work by Metsu with the same title—sometimes identified
as a brothel scene—that hangs today in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. It shows
a young man carousing in a brothel, and despite the fact that it was displayed
amid a high density of other paintings and furnishings, members of the family,
friends, relatives, and perhaps acquaintances from the church and the orphanage
would have been able to see it.40
A painting such as Metsu’s The Prodigal Son, which prominently includes a male playing
the lute, would have been an excellent work to hang for both family members as well as
friends to discuss. [See Fig. 2]. It also would have served a purpose because paintings
with subjects of indecency and sexual salaciousness hung in common rooms. These
artworks could serve both as conversational pieces, or as moral lessons, and “there was
clearly a demand for such paintings among wealthy Amsterdammers.”41
39
Muizelaar and Phillips, Picturing Men and Women in the Dutch Golden Age, 37.
40
Ibid., 135.
41
Ibid., 134-135. This source makes specific reference to a well-respected and wealthy Dutch
family that owned one of the most famous brothel paintings, The Prodigal Son by Gabriel Metsu.
16 One of the most descriptive writings about the lute and its representations appears
in Julia Craig-McFeely’s article, “The Signifying Serpent.”42 Although Craig-McFeely’s
article is exceptional in the attention it gives to the gendering of the lute, it does not focus
on the lute’s frequent representation in genre portraits. She is mainly concerned with the
gendering of the instrument in her successful attempts at describing the anatomical
elements of the lute and its association with the female body. The lute has often been
neglected by many art historians and music historians save for a few who feel it only
necessary to make a quick reference about its attachments to love and sexuality. The
Dutch genre painters of the time, however, found the lute anything but peripheral. Its
centrality to Dutch thought, and its wealth of symbolic association, led to the
instrument’s frequent inclusion and precise placement in several paintings—especially in
brothel scenes. The first Dutch brothel scenes appear in prints and paintings around the
early sixteenth century during the time of Lucas van Leyden. Madlyn Millner Kahr
explains:
In their pictures the erotic content is disguised; the individuals shown appear to be
elegant, proper, and even aristocratic. There are veiled references, however, that
associate these works with the continuing thread of eroticism that can be traced
through the sequence of Dutch seventeenth-century painting. There seems to
have been a steady market for pictures of such subjects; this is perhaps a measure
of the Dutch people’s ambivalence toward sensuous pleasures.43
The tradition of depicting brothel scenes continued into the seventeenth century
when genre paintings became highly popular during the Dutch Golden Age. The
42
Julia Craig-McFeely, “The Signifying Serpent,” in Music, Sensation, and Sensuality (New
York: Routledge, 2002), 299-317.
43
Madlyn Millner Kahr, Dutch Painting in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, MA: Perseus
Publishing, 1993), 42-43.
17 paintings hung in the homes of Dutch families and functioned not only as entertainment
pieces, but also as portrayals of lessons of morality. Kahr explains that genre paintings
often denigrated soldiers and used them as examples of what might happen when one
gives in to lascivious behavior.
They specialized in depicting off-duty soldiers in various group activities,
including “barrack scenes,” in which soldiers enjoy such recreations as drinking
and gambling, and “tavern scenes” showing soldiers with women. “Tavern”
seems to be equivalent to “brothel” in these and other seventeenth-century Dutch
paintings.44
While many Dutch genre paintings aided painters representing a lesson of morality, the
works also reveal a great deal about society. Of course several art historians explain that
these works should not be taken literally, yet these works do in fact reveal and explain a
great deal about the culture during the seventeenth century. The substantial number of
brothel scenes that were painted during this period reveals how influential prostitutes and
brothels were in the thoughts of those populating what is now present-day Netherlands.
This thesis will demonstrate the importance of the lute in the seventeenth-century
brothel by studying three specific Dutch genre paintings. By surveying three different
paintings where the lute is the focal point, this thesis will shed new light on a vital, but
easily overlooked aspect of this art. Chapter Two will focus on the importance of the lute
as depicted in Frans van Mieris’s Brothel Scene. This chapter will include information
about the lute and its association with being a sexual icon in Dutch genre paintings.
Chapter Three will review the importance of the lute as depicted in Dirck van Baburen’s
The Procuress. This chapter will include information about prostitution and the role of
women in the Lowlands during the seventeenth century. In addition, it will be necessary
44
Ibid., 170-173.
18 to analyze the lives of prostitutes and their musical associations in the Dutch speelhuizen,
or whorehouses where music took place. The chapter will also give attention to Nicolaus
Knüpfer’s Brothel Scene, which will serve to further elaborate and enrich the literature
regarding the importance of the lute as a significant part of genre paintings. Along with
enriching the understanding of Dutch culture in the fields of art history and musicology,
the goal of this thesis will be to ignite further study into the iconography of musical
instruments as sexual symbols in Dutch genre paintings.
19 CHAPTER TWO: THE ROLE OF THE LUTE IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY
DUTCH GENRE PAINTINGS
One need not look long to discover how frequently the lute was included in Dutch
genre paintings during the seventeenth century. It was featured in more paintings than
any other plucked-string instrument such as the Baroque guitar or cittern. This
prominence parallels its preeminence in the musical world, for the instrument could be
commonly found in Italy, Germany, Spain, France, England, and the Lowlands.45 In each
of these countries, the lute developed a distinct repertoire.
The history of the lute dates from before the Middle Ages, and is believed to have
descended from the lyre and kithara of Greek times. Throughout the instrument’s
evolution, it took on several associations such as harmony, magic, love, virtue, and
sexuality. Some of these attachments were acquired during the Renaissance humanism
movement, which led to developments in the lute:
The lute ascended to preeminence in several different European cultures at
exactly the time in each when humanism became a major intellectual movement.
Italian, French, German, Spanish and English Renaissance philosophers and poets
wished to restore the lost unity of the arts—to usher in a new golden age in their
own land and era—and when seeking a modern equivalent of the lyre as a symbol
they most often chose the lute (or in Spain, the vihuela). More than any symbol
other than the lyre itself, the lute was the musical emblem of humanism, and more
45
Douglas Alton Smith, A History of the Lute from Antiquity to the Renaissance (Canada: The
Lute Society of America, Inc., 2002). Smith includes several chapters looking at each country’s individual
history of the lute, and he also considers repertory and methods of construction.
20 than any other major instrument it owed its cultivation to impetus from literature,
philosophy, and the classical revival.46
The lute’s prominence during the Renaissance period carried over to the Baroque
scholars and musicians of the time. Although the lute owes much to the “oud,” of the
Middle East, these scholars demonstrating their Euro-centric orientation, preferred to
think that the lute was created from the model of the Greek lyre. This led to writings
such as the 1727 account about the origin of the lute by Ernst Gottlieb Baron, an
eighteenth century German lutenist and composer:
The site of this invention [of the lute] is revealed to us in the following manner by
the famous writer Servius, who explains the poetic secrets of Virgil: Once when
the Nile River returned to its banks, it had left different kinds of animals lying
upon the land. Thus a tortoise remained, its flesh decayed, with nerves left
stretched in the shell. When Mercury plucked it, it produced a sound from whose
imitation the lute, or incorrectly, the cithar, was born.47
Such fanciful histories demonstrate, at the very least, the effect of the lute upon the
imagination of Europe. The historical and associative power of the lute made an
enormous impact, as well as an attractive subject for Dutch genre painters like Frans van
Mieris.
Van Mieris the Elder was born April 16, 1635, in the town of Leiden. According
to biographer Quentin Buvelot, van Mieris was supposed to follow his father’s footsteps
in the profession of becoming a goldsmith.48 Rather than studying the artistry of
metalwork, however, van Mieris soon found himself painting as an apprentice under
46
Smith, A History of the Lute, 7.
47
Ibid., 1.
48
Buvelot, Frans van Mieris, 13.
21 Abraham Toorenvliet (c.1620-1692), and later working in the studios of Gerrit Dou
(1613-1675) and Abraham van den Tempel (1622/23-1672).49 Although van Mieris
painted portraits of the most wealthy citizens in Leiden, and created numerous drawings,
he mainly earned a reputation “throughout his own country and abroad” as one of the
most influential genre painters.50 Although van Mieris was paid a healthy wage for his
paintings, he regrettably found himself often in debt.
Documents of the time show that he had to relinquish some of his household
effects as collateral for a loan in 1666, and two years later he was in debt again,
this time to a fellow painter. In 1672 he owed a huge amount in rent, and some
time later he was seriously in debt to an innkeeper for food and drink consumed
on the premises and for deliveries of alcoholic beverages.51
Perhaps then, van Mieris had a deeper understanding of the drunken soldiers he
painted in some of his works like Brothel Scene (c. 1658-1659). Like many genre
paintings of the time, Brothel Scene is very small, measuring 42.8 by 33.3 centimeters.
Its exact date is unknown because van Mieris’s signature, above the doorway, reads
“165”, a reference to the 1650s, but with the last numeral missing. The painting now
hangs in the Maurithuis, a renowned art museum in The Hague, Netherlands. Several art
historians have deciphered clues from this painting’s emblems, but many scholars
overlook the most important symbol—the lute. Why does the lute receive very little, if
any, recognition in iconographical and art historical studies of similar paintings? To
49
Dou was known as a genre painter and Tempel was known for both history and portrait
paintings.
50
Buvelot, Frans van Mieris, 16.
51
Ibid., 23.
22 understand the reason for this, it will be necessary to review what these scholars have
found important enough to discuss.
In first glancing at van Mieris’s Brothel Scene, it appears that a man and a woman
are enjoying the company of one another while she pours him a drink [See Fig. 3]. Upon
a closer examination, however, several clues delineate the true meaning of the painting.
Buvelot, art historian and editor of a recent monograph on the works of van Mieris, found
a common theme in the couple pictured center. “The essence of the interaction between
the two is clear from a detail that does not immediately strike the eye: with his right hand
the man is pulling the woman's apron to draw her closer,” Buvelot said.52 Another van
Mieris painting, The Lovers, he notes, similarly includes a couple with the woman
serving as the initiator who tugs at a man’s overcoat. In Brothel Scene, the man
suggestively tugs at the woman’s apron, which protects her expensive garments.
Buvelot makes little mention of the lute except to say, “A number of other details
in this heavily erotic scene may have meanings attached to them—the lute could refer to
love, and the upturned hat to the female genitals—but this is mere conjecture.”53
Buvelot’s supposition should be accepted, but in his caution he seems unmindful of
contemporary studies and musical iconography, which interpret the lute as an object of
love; instead he suggests that such emblems are all secondary. The precise detail of van
Mieris’s lute reveal that it was painted carefully—as if to invite the eye’s focus—and so
the artwork should be allotted more than passing consideration.
52
Ibid., 126. Frans van Mieris’s The Lovers is discussed on page 112.
53
Ibid., 128.
23 The lute pictured by van Mieris appears to be a nine or ten course lute. Ian
Finlay, a historian specializing in musical instruments in paintings, defines several types
of similar lutes including what he has labeled as a “theorbo-lute.” The lute features two
riders: a “first pegbox was placed at right angles to the fingerboard, while the second
(pegbox) was a continuation of the neck,” Finlay said adding, “This was the commonest
type of arch-lute in the seventeenth century.”54 It was also one of the most commonly
painted instruments. In this particular painting, the instrument also appears to be
constructed of shaded yew, one of the more common types of wood used for bracing
during the 1600s. Each rib alternates between lighter and darker shades that were
carefully brushed by van Mieris. Also visible are the fret bracings made of gut. Van
Mieris takes pains to present the angled pegbox of this lute realistically by painting the
shadows cast by the straight pegbox.
The first subjects usually observed in the painting are the people in the
foreground. Many of the details involving the central couple are relevant to observations
of the lute. Frans van Mieris has purposefully painted the lute at a slight angle, and the
reason for this can be found in the woman holding the pitcher. The woman, who is a
prostitute, exactly mirrors the angle of the hanging instrument. She slightly tilts to the
right as she extends her hand out to hold the pitcher. The choice of the theorbo-lute has
allowed van Mieris to draw a direct comparison between the woman and the lute. To
further elaborate on the symbolic unity between the prostitute and the lute, van Mieris
borrows the color scheme of the lute’s back, and transfers that to the back of the woman’s
54
Ian F Finlay, “Musical Instruments in 17th-Century Dutch Paintings,” in The Galpin Society
Journal 6 (1953), 55.
24 headdress. The back of her headdress features an alternating pattern of about eight brown
stripes and a lighter shade similar to the rib shadings of yew on the lute.
In addition, the striated pattern found on the lute and the woman’s headdress is
borrowed by a more spacious pattern in the sleeves of the soldier’s shirt. It is also not a
coincidence that the male dog is painted predominantly with shades of brown and red,
resembling the outfit of the soldier. Likewise, the female dog is mostly white with
additional darker shaded spots throughout. Much has been written about these two
fornicating dogs in Brothel Scene, which were painted over during the nineteenth century
and rediscovered during a restoration in 1949.55 According to Buvelot, the dogs
represent an Italian motto used in Jacob Cats’s emblem book (1632) that translates, “The
mistress takes after her dog.”56 Whether or not the couple in the foreground will follow
suit is left to the imagination of the viewer. The same is true for the couple in the
background, which many have concluded to be a self-portrait of van Mieris because of
the similar facial features.57 Perhaps these two are negotiating, or have finished their
business; one can only make conjecture. The most attention, however, has been given to
the seated soldier and the prostitute who mirrors the lute.
While the viewer may not know who owns the lute in this picture, it would be fair
to conclude that the prostitute holding the pitcher would have been able to play it.
Similar to courtesans in Italy, it would have been a staple instrument of the brothel for the
55
Buvelot, Frans van Mieris, 126-128. Buvelot wrote: “The dogs can be linked to an Italian
motto meaning, 'The mistress takes after her dog,' which Jacob Cats included in a book of emblems in
1632."
56
Ibid.
57
Ibid.
25 prostitutes in the Lowlands to have an easily accessible lute. The sounds of the
instrument could best express the harlot’s intentions, as well as enhance patron’s
temptations. Musicologist Julia Craig-McFeely has written about the importance of the
lute to the seventeenth-century Venetian courtesan:
From its origins, the lute had been allegorically associated with fertility; its
rounded back reminding the observer of the pregnant belly of a woman. It is a
short step from fertility and pregnancy to an association with sex, and in particular
with women's sexuality; Thomas Coryat's Crudities of 1611 describes the practice
of Venetian courtesans carrying the lute as a badge of their trade, and also
comments that the courtesans were often independently famous for their skill as
players.58
Richard Leppert also points out the importance of the lute as an instrument of the
prostitute. Carla Zecher discusses Leppert’s insightful book titled The Sight of Sound:
Music, Representation, and the History of the Body, as she states:
An image of a woman with a lute, if not belonging to an allegorical series (the
Muses or the Liberal Arts), was ever subject to erotic interpretations. According
to Richard Leppert, by the seventeenth century the lute had become a common
attribute of procuresses and prostitutes, who carried it with them into public
houses as a mark of their profession.59
It is easy to understand the inclusion, and importance, of the lute in Dutch brothel scenes
knowing that the instruments were used as a badge of the trade in Venice. Amsterdam,
then, being the third largest city in Europe would seem to have attracted many prostitutes
similar to Venice where the instrument was a “badge of their trade.”
58
Craig-McFeely, “The Signifying Serpent,” 301.
59
Zecher, “The Gendering of the Lute,” 774. Also see Richard Leppert, The Sight of Sound:
Music, Representation, and the History of the Body (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
26 The above statement also makes reference to the rounded back of the lute seen as
the pregnant belly. Dutch artists frequently painted the lute to depict lovesick, or
pregnant women and these works were labeled “lovesick maiden,” or “doctor’s visit.”
One of the best examples is Jan Steen’s The Doctor and His Patient (date unknown), in
which a woman, perhaps a courtesan, is feeling sick from pregnancy and the lute (also
with its rounded belly) hangs above her head on the wall as the doctor checks her pulse
(See Fig. 4). She may be the daughter of a wealthy household. Her elegant attire does
not help to decipher the question: both prostitutes and privileged women wore attractive
clothing. As mentioned previously, many pregnant women immigrated to Amsterdam
with hopes of received free health care for their expected child. The confessieboeken, as
explained by Lotte van de Pol, presented information that several of those immigrants
were left no choice but to work in the sex trade.
Zecher has written about the lute’s rounded belly, and although she does not
discuss this in the context of Steen’s painting, her remarks seem pertinent:
The lute's anatomy—its rounded belly, its ‘worthy voluptuousness’—reinforced
connections with notions of femininity and especially fertility, by evoking
pregnancy. While the lute could symbolize voluptas in the positive sense of the
term (that is, music-making as a pleasant pastime, as solace, as a source of mindbody equilibrium), it could also connote the vita voluptuosa, with its illicit
gratification, its excess and dissipation.60
The woman, depicted in fine garments, is having her pulse checked by the doctor. She is
stricken by either love sickness or pregnancy out of wedlock. By considering the lute’s
anatomical form, a strong argument could be made for the latter.
60
Zecher, “The Gendering of the Lute,” 772.
27 While the lute has significant relevance to Steen’s painting, van Mieris places
extra emphasis on the positioning of the lute. Of course the instrument possesses several
features of a woman’s body with the curvature and rosette, but the mere orientation of the
instrument weighs heavily on interpretations. For example, in van Mieris’s Brothel
Scene, the back of the lute is visible. One possible reason for the presentation of the
backside is the use of van Mieris’s striation pattern found in the man, the woman, the
copulating dogs, and more spaciously in the bed linens at the top of the painting. The
prostitute seems not to have performed for the soldier yet, but it is likely that during the
process of reaching an agreement, the lute will be taken down from the wall and gently
strummed. Several associations of the lute such as harmony and love were mentioned
previously, and eroticism could also be added to the list.
The sounds of the prostitute’s lute heard by sailors would have been an intense
form of foreplay, which explains why procuresses supplied such instruments to the young
women. Among the most common customers for prostitutes were sailors who had
returned from sea. Both soldiers and sailors were often painted in satirical manners
possibly for that very reason. Lotte van de Pol claims that many of these men were in
need of temporary housing in between their voyages through the two main Dutch trade
companies:
By far the most important group were sailors of the East and West India
Companies, who, especially during the summer months, came ashore in their
thousands to spend their wages on wine and women. For many of them, brothels
were temporary homes; and prostitutes and brothel-keepers regularly married East
India-men.61
61
Van de Pol, Het Amsterdams hoerdom, 497-500.
28 Along with the sailor, everyday soldiers were placed in the same category. Madlyn Kahr
discusses the soldier depicted in van Mieris’s Brothel Scene in her book Dutch Painting
in the Seventeenth Century:
Though this frank representation of a house of prostitution might ostensibly have
been designed as a warning against the behavior shown, it would doubtless appeal
to prurient tastes. It may be that the careful composition and fine painting gave
the coarse subject matter added spice. The man in the foreground, wearing a steel
cuirass, is clearly identified as a soldier. By the time this was painted, Dutch art
had for some fifty years derogated soldiers, and this was not the end of it.
Soldiers could serve as whipping boys for the animal impulses that good burghers
were constrained to deny.62
Soldiers and sailors, just like the lute, were common features of the brothel depictions
during the Dutch Golden Age. In congruence with historical accounts of sailors
frequenting brothels and using them as places of temporary residence, these figures are
also represented in Dutch genre paintings set in the brothel. The same is true for the lute,
which, as a favorite instrument, became a “badge” that adorned the seemingly refined
prostitute. Frans van Mieris’s Brothel Scene shows the viewer how important the lute is
not only to the captivating prostitute, but also to the sex worker’s environment.
To gain a further understanding of the importance of the lute in the seventeenthcentury brothel, the following chapter will consider both statistical information about
prostitutes during the time, as well as additional Dutch genre paintings that feature the
lute as a central emblem. Special attention will be paid to Dirck van Baburen’s The
Procuress as well as Nicolaus Knüpfer’s Brothel Scene. Both works of art feature the
lute in unique manners that demonstrate the instrument was a necessary piece of
equipment for prostitutes.
62
Kahr, Dutch Painting in the Seventeenth Century, 178.
29 CHAPTER THREE: MUSIC IN THE DUTCH BROTHEL
But I would like then, at the same time,
Having well tuned my little lute,
Having felt it, and tested its sound,
To sing a song on it,
To see what gesture he would make.
~ Du Guillet
Lotte van de Pol documents the lives of prostitutes in Het Amsterdams hoerdom:
Prostitutie in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw (“The Whores of Amsterdam: Prostitutes
in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries”), published in 1996. Faramerz Dabhoiwala
included an English summary translation in a recent printing of van de Pol’s book where
he explains that two of Amsterdam’s “main tourist attractions were the speelhuizen,
music halls where whores plied openly, and the spinhuis, the prison where such women
were incarcerated.”63 Indeed, several of the prostitutes who worked and lived in Dutch
brothels were prosecuted for their behavior. Included in van de Pol’s book are some of
the 8,099 court accounts of prostitutes between 1650 and 1750 in the city of
Amsterdam.64 The accounts were noted in what is now referred to as the
confessieboeken. Despite the fact that van de Pol was able to document 8,099 cases of
prostitution being placed on trial during this timeframe, it would be impossible to know
the exact number of prostitutes living in the seventeenth-century Lowlands area. Some
prostitutes may have also been repeat offenders. Nevertheless, important information has
63
Kahr, Dutch Painting in the Seventeenth Century, 495.
64
Ibid.
30 been gathered from those documents, such as the birthplace of each woman placed on
trial. From this information, van de Pol observed that most of the prostitutes in
seventeenth-century Amsterdam were immigrants. Her study suggests that Amsterdam
was a main center of prostitution in Europe during the seventeenth century, and the
outrageous increase in population provides support for larger estimates. As observed in
Arlette Farge’s A History of Women in the West:
According to contemporary observers, prostitutes were everywhere. A census in
Venice in 1526 counted 4,900 prostitutes among a population of 55,035; when
pimps and procuresses are included, it appears that approximately 10 percent of
the Venetian population lived off prostitution. Contemporary estimates of the
number of prostitutes in mid-eighteenth-century Paris run between 10,000 and
40,000, or between 10 and 15 percent of the adult female population.65
In the Amsterdam confessieboeken, approximately 8,000 out of 38,000 trials dealt
with various prostitution charges; an additional 1,000 cases were also connected to
additional “aspects of the trade.”66 By these estimates alone, nearly 24 percent, or almost
one in every four court case documented in the Amsterdam confession book, was directly
connected to prostitution. Van de Pol estimates that between 10-40 percent of
Amsterdam prostitutes were arrested each year during the peak of the sex trade.67
Recent studies examining the actual circumstances of brothels in Utrecht and the
wider Dutch Republic have revealed a world as sordid as the sex industry of our
own time, particularly in ports such as Amsterdam, which by the seventeenth
century was the third largest city in Europe, after London and Paris.”68
65
Arlette Farge and Natalie Zemon Davis, eds., A History of Women in the West. Vol. 3:
Renaissance and Enlightenment Paradoxes (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 498.
Emphasis added.
66
Van de Pol, Het Amsterdams hoerdom, 496.
67
Spicer, Masters of Light, 247.
68
Ibid. Emphasis added.
31 Women, especially those coming from impoverished backgrounds, would have likely
known that work would be easier to find in bigger cities such as Amsterdam. Some
women told stories of even being tricked into prostitution: “Anna Catryn van Drongelen,
for example, a servant from Den Bosch in Brabant, went in 1658 to the Amsterdam fair
and was tricked into prostitution by the woman with whom she traveled.”69
A large city like Amsterdam, in addition to other attractions, offered healthcare
and assistance relief programs. The system began in 1578 with a revolution against the
Spanish throne. The most important provider van de Pol cites is the Dutch Reformed
Church, but only church members were able to receive assistance from their aide.70
Along with this charity, the city took care of the elderly, sick, and orphans “in several
ancient hospices, and two civil chests, administered by the so-called
Huiszittenmeesters.”
In principle, therefore, poor newcomers—let alone women as disreputable as
prostitutes or unmarried mothers—could not expect to be taken care of by the
Amsterdam system for public charity, at least not during the first years after their
arrival. The most they could officially expect was a three days’ stay in the city’s
guesthouse for poor travelers (the Bayerd) and some traveling money to go
elsewhere. In reality, however, several groups of immigrants received help. But
there were also institutions that helped the poor irrespective of their background
and even in if they were ‘dishonorable.’ The most important of these was the
Aalmoezeniershuis, an institution founded in 1613 originally to clear the
Amsterdam streets of (alien) vagrants and beggars.71
69
Van de Pol and Kuijpers, “Poor Women’s Migration to the City,” 54.
70
Ibid., 55.
71
Ibid.
32 So many different stories and backgrounds were connected to the immigrant
prostitution in Amsterdam and to other prosperous cities as well. A few Dutch bawds
found that so many immigrants detracted from their profits that they moved their business
to other countries. Historian John Murray writes about the cultural impact of Flemish sex
workers in England and cites one example of how a “troop of soldiers remove(d) one
group of Dutch prostitutes from a manor house, which they had purchased for business
purposes.”72 The large population of Dutch courtesans affected all parts of European life
from the aristocracy to the middle class; prostitutes in Amsterdam found a way into the
homes of everyone—especially through works of art.
One example of this can be found in Dirck van Baburen’s The Procuress, which
now hangs today in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston [See Fig. 5]. Baburen used oil on
canvas (102 by 108 cm.) to create the masterwork in 1622.73 This captivating genre
painting was once kept in Maria Thins’s home about two decades later in 1641.74 Thins,
who would eventually become Johaness Vermeer’s mother-in-law, had married a wealthy
brick maker, but she soon found herself the victim of an abusive relationship and was
divorced. The importance of this work must have left an impression on the young
Vermeer, however, because he paints Baburen's procuress in the background of his The
Concert and The Lady Seated at the Virginals.75 Also important is that Thins, although
certainly not a prostitute herself, may likely have felt a deeper emotional connection to
72
John J. Murray, “The Cultural Impact of the Flemish Low Countries on Sixteenth- and
Seventeenth-Century England,” in The American Historical Review 62, no. 4 (1957), 854.
73
Web Gallery of Art, http://www.wga.hu (accessed April 1, 2010).
74
Muizelaar and Phillips, eds., Picturing Men and Women in the Dutch Golden, 133-34.
75
Kahr, Dutch Painting in the Seventeenth Century, 296.
33 the painting in light of her autonomous situation, which was similar to many women who
found themselves left with few choices other than prostitution. Because women
outnumbered men in Amsterdam, “there was at all times a large surplus of relatively
poor, single women who had difficulty finding adequate employment, stood little chance
of marrying, and were therefore at risk of turning to prostitution.”76 The picture thus
presents one of the starker alternatives available to Amsterdam’s young women. Many of
the immigrants from other European countries and Lowland towns made their way to
major cities such as Amsterdam.
Some prostitution took place covertly in inns, taverns and other public places of
entertainment. But primarily the business revolved around various types of
‘whorehouse’, i.e. a household headed by a keeper (usually female) with two or
three resident whores. Such establishments often doubled as lodging houses for
those who were unwelcome elsewhere: foreign sailors, unmarried mothers, or
men and women released from prison, for example; and even the keeper and the
resident prostitutes themselves usually only stayed for a few months before
moving to a new address. Although the threat of prosecution limited capital
investment, and hence the scale of whorehouses, some were of considerable
sophistication.77
One might ask how any sort of association or part of a brothel could be considered in
some manner advanced or even cultured. When considering Baburen’s The Procuress,
however, several clues reveal a degree of unexpected, yet informal sophistication.
Baburen’s portrait combines the notion of music and closeness. The
cavalier anxiously drapes his arm around the young prostitute as she plucks the courses of
the lute to entice his senses. The lute and its sounds then can be associated with
intimacy. The more sweet, delicate sounds the prostitute produces, the more the
76
Ibid., 497.
77
Van de Pol, Het Amsterdams hoerdom, 497-98. From summary translation by Faramez
Dabhoiwala. Emphasis added.
34 customer will interpret them as an invitation to draw closer. Lutes generally produce
very soft, rounded sounds, and Baburen has carried these warm tones into his painting by
portraying the courtesan’s features in the same manner. Her partially exposed breast
reveals a perfect roundness echoed by the clear circular gold coin being offered by the
cavalier. What is more is that one can imagine a feeling of warmth as the man’s right
hand clutches to her shoulder. The harlot, however, is not quite ready to allow the soldier
complete access: she carefully gazes past him as if awaiting consent from the procuress,
who demands more money.
Without the lute, the courtesan would not be able to use her elbow as a barrier
between her rounded bosom and the cavalier. Performing on an instrument, such as a
guitar or lute, involves shifting of the elbow position, and it is possible that the prostitute
is performing her music according to the direction the transaction is taking. One of the
most important lute technique books comes from England and is known as the Mary
Burwell Lute Tutor (c. 1660-72). Zecher mention’s the work in her article to emphasize
the importance of posture as understood by lute performers:
One must sit upright in playing to show no constraint or pains, to have a smiling
countenance, that the company may not think you play unwillingly, and [to] show
that you animate the lute as well as the lute does animate you. Yet you must not
stir your body nor your head, nor show any extreme satisfaction in your playing.
You must make no mouths, nor bite your lips, nor cast your hands in a flourishing
manner that relishes of a fiddler. In one word, you must not less please the eyes
than the ears. All the actions that one does in playing of the lute are handsome;
the posture is modest, free and gallant, and do not hinder society. The shape of
the lute is not so troublesome; and whereas other instruments constrain the body,
the lute sets it in an advantageous posture. When one plays of the virginal he
turns his back to the company. The viol entangleth one in spreading the arms, and
openeth the legs (which doth not become man, much less woman). The beauty of
the arm, of the hands and of the neck are advantageously displayed in playing of
the lute.78
78
Zecher, “The Gendering of the Lute,” 771.
35 This statement found in the Mary Burwell Lute Tutor improves the understanding and
importance of lute posture, as well as advantages that such an instrument would have
supplied to prostitutes when dealing with customers. In studying Baburen’s The
Procuress, if the cavalier refuses to increase his payment, our lady lutenist would shift
her elbow outwards keeping his left hand just out of reach. Such gestures not only defer
the customer by delaying what he wants, but they may also create additional feelings of
enticement. It would be hard to suggest these features to the viewer if the lute were taken
away from the picture. However, with the inclusion of the instrument, Baburen has
created a complex web of symbolism.
The lute enriches the meaning of the painting and it all begins with the soundhole.
The filigree rosette is delicately depicted to show that the lute maker carefully carved an
intricate design. Without the soundhole, there would be no sweet music heard, and so it
was important to correctly paint this central part of the instrument on the body of the lute.
As noted in Chapter One, the bottom of the lute features a heart-shaped pearl inlay, a
Baroque characteristic of the need for such an instrument’s ornate qualities. A small
feature such as a pearl inlay, or finer materials used for parts of the lute such as the tuning
pegs, would have greatly increased the price of the instrument. Such expensive
instruments and other essential necessities often placed prostitutes in debt with their
procuress giving them no hope for any life outside of the trade. Or as another source
explained, their plight
resulted from prostitutes' regular need for new, expensive clothes and finery, the
essential tools of their trade. Given the numbers dependent upon the trade (not
just as bawds and prostitutes, but also as servants, dressmakers, musicians,
36 victuallers, and the like), prostitution was an important part of the urban
economy.79
Prostitution was such an important part of society that the trade evolved over time
as the city changed. At first police loosely monitored the brothels or speelhuizen by
issuing permits for musicians and charging tavern owners or procuresses fees when
disruptions occurred such as fights and other disturbances in their businesses.80
Following the 1670s, brothels became “increasingly specialized.” An increase in
the number of speelhuizen and whorehouses, in addition to the harlots’ need for selfenhancement through luxurious clothes and other items, fueled the professionalization of
sex trade. “This development coincided chronologically with the rise of Amsterdam's
speelhuizen as centers of night life, dancing, and sexual rendezvous,” one source
explains, adding that around the mid to late seventeenth century there were
approximately twenty whorehouses functioning throughout various areas of the city.81
In the early eighteenth century, many of these establishments were forced underground
by local authorities, only to regain prominence toward middle of the century. During the
period sex trade flourished in Amsterdam, prostitutes not only spent time negotiating
with customers, but also with their procuress, “who was paid either a fixed weekly
amount for board and lodging, or half the prostitute's earnings.”
Credit arrangements between bawds and prostitutes, and the debts that resulted
from them, played a large part in inducing women to enter and remain in
79
Van de Pol, Het Amsterdams hoerdom, 498.
80
Ibid., 499.
81
Ibid.
37 prostitution. Sometimes a woman's initial debt to a whorehouse-keeper was
incurred during a period of illness, unemployment, or pregnancy.82
When courtesans fell into debt, they were treated similarly to slaves—the obliged
prostitute was usually bought and sold from one procuress to the next. Dabhoiwala
summarizes four stages of prostitution from the seventeenth to the eighteenth centuries.
Around the year 1650, the trade is treated more freely and law enforcement mostly
ignored the practices.
Between 1670 and 1710, however, Amsterdam's nightlife was transformed by the
installation of street-lighting. Prostitutes started to ply in the streets in far greater
numbers, speelhuizen became very popular, and a rash of publications explored
and magnified the city's reputation for sexual vice.83
Authorities kept a closer watch on prostitution than previously, but were still lenient for
the most part. The importance of instruments, such as the lute, to brothels is strongly
emphasized by the final changes in prostitution when police were forced to try and
suppress the sex trade:
As a consequence, a new policy was instituted around 1710. Fewer resources
were now wasted on first offenders, who were simply given a formal warning.
Instead, policing concentrated on rooting out recidivists and the organizers of the
trade, and punishing them severely. For the first time, bawds were subjected to
the formal shaming punishments; and keepers of brothels and speelhuizen lost
their capital through the confiscation of clothes and musical instruments.84
The idea that police saw it necessary to confiscate musical instruments reveals how
important lutes were to prostitutes and speelhuizen in general. Without the instrument,
82
Ibid.
83
Ibid., 499.
84
Ibid. Emphasis added.
38 the brothel would not come to life, and this is precisely the reason for its inclusion in so
many of the Dutch genre paintings created during the seventeenth century. The lute was
not merely a space filler, or passive hint at love, but rather a meaningful and central part
of the story behind every brothel. Courtesans needed lutes to appear seductive to their
customers and to set the mood, as well as provide entertainment. Without lutesongs
being performed by a well-dressed prostitute, the brothel would have been a much more
drab place; the mystique captured by the genre painters (with lutes included) reveal the
essence of the whorehouse.
Baburen’s painting The Procuress is an excellent example of how important the
lute’s function becomes in the brothel. In the painting, the lute not only functions as a
symbol of love or lust, but it also serves a purpose. The lute allows the prostitute to
advertise that she is open to closeness, but only once a deal has been made. By
performing a lutesong, it not only allows the prostitute to entice the cavalier, but also
allows her elbow to function as a barrier for her preference in degree of proximity. She
can revert her attention to the music, and thus she can seem to ignore the customer at the
moment.
The procuress also receives careful consideration, and her hands are painted in a
very specific position. Baburen ensures that the procuress not only bargains a payment
for her prostitute’s services, but also clearly enhances the meaning of the painting. Note
that her right hand faces the viewer while her left index finger points directly toward the
soundhole. Two important points should be made by this feature Baburen has painted.
The first of importance is that her right hand does not face the customer, but the viewer.
If one were going to demand, or bargain a payment from a patron, this would seem to be
39 an extremely unlikely positioning of her hand. The second item to consider is that the
left index finger directly lines up to the soundhole. Baburen has used the finger as a
phallic symbol in which the soundhole clearly represents an anthropomorphic association
with the vagina.
The cavalier’s left hand, also has a connection with the soundhole, although on a
much more iconic level. The viewer may notice that along with the coin the cavalier is
holding, his left hand is positioned directly in line with the prostitute’s left hand. The
courtesan’s hand position places her thumb and index fingers on the second fret of the
seven-course lute.85 As the viewer scans left, the cavalier’s hand is strikingly similar in
shape. By painting the cavalier’s hand in such a manner that mimics the harlot’s
fretwork, Baburen has elevated the lute’s iconographic importance in The Procuress. It
is as though the lute foretells an erotic encounter waiting to happen; the unusual way the
cavalier holds the coin becomes easier to understand when considering the importance of
the lute. Once again, the painting would lose much of its meaning without the
instrument, but its inclusion provides a central point of reference: the lute not only
enhances the location of this intimate gathering, but allows Baburen to tell the story of
what negotiations in the seventeenth century brothel or speelhuizen were like. Moreover,
the lute maintains its pertinence as a sexual symbol with its sweet sonic qualities that
create emotions of pleasure, interest, and desire.
Another artist echoes the discipline of creating a direct alignment with one of the
lute’s features. Gerrit van Honthorst’s work titled Supper Party was painted in 1620 [See
85
The seven-course lute replaced the six-course lute as the most popular of instruments around
1580, according to Michael Lowe’s article “The Historical Development of the Lute in the Seventeenth
Century,” in The Galpin Society Journal 29 (1976), 12.
40 Fig. 6]. The work, which is now displayed at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, was created
while Honthorst was working in Italy.86 The artistry of Honthorst apparently became an
example for other Utrecht artists during the 1620s, when according to Jacob Rosenberg,
“Utrecht artists favored the erotic rather than the ascetic side of Baroque art.” Rosenberg,
describes the scene from Supper Party as follows:
There is one open light on the right, where a young girl is putting a piece of
chicken into the mouth of her friend. An old woman is enjoying the scene, and
Honthorst took delight in studying the reflections of light on her withered face.
The young man regards this action only as an interruption of another more
important occupation, since he holds his glass and bottle ready for the next
draught. The people on the left are interestedly watching the proceedings.87
Rosenberg does not mention the lute, which is central and in this case being played by a
male counterpart. It is clearly another example of a Dutch artist using the lute as the
focus of importance where the chicken wing combined with the candle, mirror the
curvature of the pegbox, or head, of the lute. To further portray this, Honthorst has the
young prostitute hold what appears to be either a skinny connecting piece of bone, or
utensil, to assist in feeding the individual the meat—the connecting piece replicates the
line of the lute’s neck. Again, the older woman (far right) is the procuress and she keeps
close watch on the young prostitute seducing the customer. In Supper Party, the lute is
used to set the stage for what is about to take place. The work is also representative of
the five senses tradition, where each of the senses is attached in some manner in the
86
Jacob Rosenberg, Seymour Slive, and E.H. Ter Kuile, eds., Dutch Art and Architecture: 1620 to
1800 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 42-43. The author states that Honthorst painted the
work in his final months in Italy, and that the work “set a precedent for similar scenes done in the 1620s at
Utrecht.”
87
Rosenberg, Slive, and Kuile, Dutch Art and Architecture, 43.
41 painting. Taste is applied to the meat the man is being fed; sight is applied to the
onlookers on the other side of the table; touch appears to be featured in the couple (lute
player and woman to his left); the plate of meat represents smell; and finally, sound is
expressed through the lute player in the center of the painting.
A different Honthorst painting was examined by author Madlyn Millner Kahr—
The Procuress (1625) [See Fig. 7]. Kahr makes references to the artwork and
“amorousness in art”:
The ruddiness of the skin tones, heightened by nearby candlelight, is
characteristic of Honthorst’s style of his Caravaggesque years. The old procuress
at the left grins approvingly as the young man, who grasps his money bag with his
left hand, offers a coin to the smiling young woman. The young woman holds a
lute, a commonly understood symbol for harmony in the sense of agreement.
Music had long been associated with amorousness in art, and a lute player was
often included in “Merry Company” or “Prodigal Son” compositions.88
Paintings of “merry company,” or even the “garden party,” appear to be representations
of more aristocratic and wealthy Dutch members of society. However, these works of art
suggest prostitution—then as now—and reached even the highest echelons of society.
An important document providing accounts of harlot life intermixing with the aristocratic
community exists in the diaries of Constantijn Huygens, Jr. (1628-1697), who was the
son of a Dutch diplomat and musician, Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687). In addition to
his father, Huygens Jr., had a younger brother, Christiaan Huygens, who also played the
lute and composed music. Although Huygens Jr., was more interested in science than
music, one thing he did have in common with his father is that they both served as
secretary to the rulers of the Netherlands. Rudolf Dekker, a historian in the Netherlands,
88
Kahr, Dutch Painting in the Seventeenth Century, 41.
42 has studied the diaries of Huygens Jr., and believes they are not only an excellent source
for understanding Dutch court life and elite society, but also of “the sexual practices” that
affected those two groups.89
Huygens’s accounts of subjects ranging from prostitution to adultery, which
encompassed even the highly ranked princes of Orange, provide first hand information on
one of the most important facets of Dutch society. One journal entry describes the
practice of prostitution during the seventeenth century:
Although forbidden as a crime and occasionally prosecuted, in practice,
prostitution was to a large extent tolerated, and the speelhuizen of Amsterdam
were an attraction no tourist seemed to miss.90
As mentioned earlier, speelhuizen were music halls where prostitutes pursued customers
who drank and listened to music. Huygens does not explain whether or not aristocrats as
well as the middle and lower classes attended speelhuizen, but the fact that he knew of
such establishments suggests that these music halls were popular among all Dutch
citizens, as well as tourists. Some of Huygens’s accounts are second-hand information,
but still intriguing.
One story describes the most famed establishment in all of Amsterdam—Madame
Latouche’s brothel. The story was told to Huygens by Willem Meester, a mechanical
engineer in the army, who visited the brothel. “First there appeared a young Italian
woman, who displayed a variety of ‘lascivious arts,’ such as singing, playing, and
89
Rudolf M. Dekker, “Sexuality, Elites, and Court Life in the Late Seventeenth Century: The
Diaries of Constantijn Huygens, Jr.,” in Eighteenth-Century Life 23, no. 3 (1999), 94.
90
Dekker, “Sexuality, Elites, and Court Life,” 97.
43 dancing,” Meester said.91 Considering this quotation in light of the importance artists
placed on the lute allows one to understand that music had an extremely pivotal role in
the brothel. It is unknown if Meester was married, however, someone who was most
likely held in high regard among certain Dutch circles would not have wanted to get
caught in an establishment such as Madame Latouche’s.
Whereas sex before marriage merely violated social norms, sex outside marriage
was a criminal offense. In Huygens’ circles it was also a favorite topic of gossip.
The victims were the object of insulting songs, or even worse, of mud, or were
dragged around the village on the back of a donkey.92
Although the Dutch artists do not portray what Lynn Federle Orr calls “social realism,”
or the darker, less glamorous side of prostitution, the overall character and scenery of
such depictions should continue to be examined for emblematic or iconic importance of
the included materials. One item frequently included in brothel scenes and other genre
paintings is that of oysters. Huygens’s diaries impart evidence for reasons such items
may have been included in paintings:
Both in the army and in the cities, no distinct boundary could be drawn between
professional prostitutes and those who practiced prostitution as a sideline. For
instance, a member of the noble family Van Heecheren had his eye on the
daughters of the court of Holland’s armorer, who were reputed to be ‘great
whores.’ He asked an oyster seller who lived next to them if she could make their
acquaintance, as he would like to ‘offer them an oyster.’ The oyster vender
answered, ‘Sir, what you want I can give you as well.’ (7 June 1689). This bit of
gossip confirms the interpretation that oysters and oyster women were associated
with sex in, for example, many Dutch genre paintings from this period.93
91
Ibid.
92
Ibid., 96.
93
Ibid., 99.
44 Van Mieris’s Brothel Scene, which depicted the lute hung on the wall, also includes
oyster shells strewn across the floor. Orr attempts to differentiate between the social
realism of pock-marked prostitutes versus the highly attractive females depicted in
brothel scenes by artists. Yet care should be taken when attempting to differentiate
specific features by artists. The following statement by Orr could be misinterpreted as
another declaration that minimizes the importance of music in brothels as represented in
Dutch genre paintings:
Combining beauty, finery, delectable food—such as oysters—drink, and music,
the painters evoke in their brothels a pleasurable, but entirely fictional,
atmosphere. In images such as this by Baburen, the unsavory is made palatable
for the consumption of members of polite society, who purchased such
paintings.”94
Although Orr is most likely not denying that oysters, music, and drink, were commonly
found in brothels, she does conclude that paintings, such as Baburen’s The Procuress,
conceal the truly sordid features of such establishments, and that Dutch “polite society”
would prefer to purchase paintings depicting the more refined-looking prostitute. Still, I
do not believe this is what van Mieris set out to do in his Brothel Scene. The fact that the
brothel features a soldier who has passed out on the table, and clutter on the floor,
suggests that the artist was aiming for a type of social realism. In addition, exquisitely
painted instruments in works such as Baburen’s The Procuress are supported by
information about prostitutes and their procuress, who frequently sought such objects as
necessities to the business of sex trade. Although artists may have sought to portray more
94
Spicer, Masters of Light, 247.
45 refined appearances, the inclusion of emblematic material, especially when it comes to
the lute, must always be considered of great importance.
While it seems clear that the lute would be examined in depth with each genre
painting it appears, many art historians pay little attention to this major icon. When
musical instruments do receive attention, it usually entails brief and general commentary
about how instruments represent love. Unfortunately many art historians overlook the
range of symbolic signification the lute can possess. While it may be understood that a
historical attachment of sexuality and musical instruments exists, not every art historian
is willing to attribute such a belief when reviewing Dutch genre paintings. In his
valuable book Dutch Seventeenth-Century Genre Painting, Wayne Franits, a well-known
Dutch art historian, recently minimized the importance of musical instruments as
represented in Dutch genre paintings of the time.95 In considering Dirck van Baburen’s
The Procuress (1622), Franits explains that van Baburen’s work should raise questions
among historians about what accounts for a Prodigal Son depiction:
What further separates The Procuress from many of its precedents is its
thoroughly secular subject matter. The overall carousing air of this canvas and
related ones has led some scholars to conclude that they constitute an updating of
sixteenth-century depictions of the Prodigal Son. Although these paintings
descend visually from depictions of the biblical parable, the insistence on
identifying them with the older moralizing imagery of the Prodigal Son is
misleading primarily because the visual evidence summoned to establish the link
is insufficient. In fact, this reasoning has led in the past to the rather awkward
argument that it was no longer necessary for artists to include explanatory details
in their work that refer back to earlier depictions of the Prodigal Son since these
very same references were implicitly understood as present. Context determines
whether a work represents the Prodigal Son or a brothel. Consequently, one
cannot carry the same admonitory content as earlier paintings of the Prodigal Son
upon the basis of compositional similarities alone or upon minor, somewhat
95
Wayne Franits, ed., Dutch Seventeenth-Century Genre Painting: Its Stylistic and Thematic
Evolution (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), 68.
46 ambiguous iconographic details (like musical instruments and drink), especially in
light of the absence of major ones (for example, the Prodigal Son himself or
episodes from the parable depicted in the background) that would support such a
reading.96
In contrast to other art historians, this however, overlooks the important symbolic
signification of the lute. Franits, in describing what meaningful elements he believes
should determine the context of either a brothel scene, or depiction of the Prodigal Son,
dismisses musical instruments as “minor, somewhat ambiguous iconographic details.”
He believes that when considering whether or not a scene represents the Prodigal son or a
brothel, such details as instruments hold little value when compared to larger details such
as the Prodigal Son himself. Franits, however, overlooks the importance of music in the
history of Dutch society, and by choosing to place little emphasis on such cardinal details
as the lute, he creates a perplexing problem (in determining whether a work is a brothel
scene or specifically invokes the parable of the Prodigal Son). In addition, this hinders
the process of understanding exactly how valuable the lute was in all facets of Dutch
society—especially as represented in the brothel of Dutch genre paintings.
Another famous Brothel Scene believed to depict the Prodigal Son story was
painted by Nicolaus Knüpfer around 1650. The work is housed in the Rijksmuseum in
Amsterdam, and at first may appear to be another genre scene. However, when one
observes the bottom portion of the work, it becomes clear that the characters are on a
stage participating in a play. Art historian Michael Rohe explains:
It is not difficult to decide if the artists actually observed the scene (Knüpfer) so
skillfully, if indiscreetly, reproduced. The ledge that closes off the bottom of the
96
Ibid., 67-69.
47 picture is a clue that what we are in fact witnessing is the performance of an
unknown play. The painter lived and worked in a city characterized by its strong
Catholic presence, any arbitrary rendering of such orgiastic debauchery would
certainly have come into conflict with both the Church and the law.97
Although Rohe suggests that the painting’s subject may have resulted in conflict with the
Catholic church, it is clear that the brothel scene, whether invoking the Prodigal Son or
not, was a common topic for artists of the time. Rohe explains that the subject of the
Prodigal Son parable seemed to be in demand during the Reformation: “Frequently
depicted outside the context of the didactic cycle, the Prodigal Son’s adventures were
eventually transformed into an independent theme.”98 Rohe is hinting at the theme of
prostitution, which during the seventeenth century in a place such as Amsterdam, would
have been quite familiar. Prior to the Dutch Golden Age, such themes were already
finding a place in theater as early as the sixteenth century.
“In the stage plays themselves the Prodigus is often depicted as a rich,
expensively dressed bon vivant, who is cleverly duped by the whores and their
cronies. The language used in the brothel is often remarkably direct. In Robert
Lawet’s version of 1583, for example, the Prodigal Son shamelessly asks Dame
World (vrouw werelt) if he may go to bed with her women, upon which he learns
that they are “ready for anything” (vrij voor alle zake). Promises are made to help
him forget his troubles, while he vows to use the women (ghebruucken) for his
pleasure. The final stage direction calls for the curtain to be dropped as the actors
retire in order to “sleep” (slapen) with one another.99
Although the book, Picturing Men and Women in the Dutch Golden Age, states that “little
is left to the imagination,” Knüpfer has depicted a scene filled with characters and action
abound. One might imagine a number of events taking place in Knüpfer’s Brothel Scene
97
Spicer, Masters of Light, 265.
98
Ibid.
99
Ibid., 266-67.
48 [See Fig. 8]. The copper fountain on the ground assists a grape vine in directing the
viewer’s attention toward the right where a drunken soldier clumsily attempts to
withdraw his sword as he falls back onto a bench. Why is this soldier reaching for his
sword? It appears as though the two soldiers standing on the table have heard someone
outside the window approaching. In his drunken state, the soldier’s head falls toward a
woman’s lap. The woman looks toward the action, but it appears as though she continues
to play the lute.
At the center of attention is the Prodigal Son, who, like the two companions on
either side, is dressed in fine garments. A woman twirls his hat with her left foot as she
moves her hand near his thigh. Such illicit sexual reference carries over to the woman on
the other side who appears to be getting up, only to have her momentum interrupted by
the young man’s foot and his grip on her hand. Knüpfer’s use of the lute in his painting
may be reminiscent of Baburen’s The Procuress when one examines the hand position of
the lute player. The left-hand position of the lute player as well as the Prodigal Son are
similar, however, the woman being restrained freely raises her left hand as if protesting
something.
The soldier in the foreground is unable to stand up due to his drunken stupor, and
although he attempts to draw his sword, he appears unsuccessful. The partially
unsheathed sword, however, retains its sexual connotations and the angle displayed
toward the woman’s lute, particularly the sound hole, are direct insinuations of
anthropomorphic suggestiveness Knüpfer has created in the brothel depiction. This
implies that excessive alcohol will make the soldier unable to have sex with the
prostitute. In addition, one should not underestimate the importance of rounded objects
49 associated with the back of the lute—the most obvious of rounded objects being the
fleeing woman’s breasts. The orange hat is yet another circular object, in this case, with
an appendage being inserted.
Although this may be considered a representation of the Prodigal Son parable, the
lute and its related emblematic material provide it with a central role that begins with the
grape vine directing the viewer’s eye to the right and is further enhanced by the rounded
objects found throughout the painting. Knüpfer precisely painted the angle of the lute
that showed the instrument’s roundness both in the back, as well as the front where the
sound hole receives emphasis from the partially unsheathed sword. No other angle could
have allowed the painter to portray both the rounded anthropomorphic details of the back
and front of the lute. As with other genre paintings, careful study of the lute reveal its
central role in the work’s meaning.
50 CONCLUSION
Although the lute is overlooked by some art historians and minimized by others,
this thesis has provided evidence that the instrument had an extremely important role in
Dutch genre paintings of the seventeenth century. Because of its anthropomorphic
iconological significance, its utility as a badge for prostitutes, its frequent inclusion in
Dutch genre paintings, and the careful manner in which painters depicted its orientation
in each depiction—the lute was clearly a part of the sex trade and its representation.
Despite a wide range of facts and information having been researched by this author
regarding the lute in the Dutch brothel and its role in genre paintings, many questions
remain unanswered.
Further research must be conducted to gain a greater understanding of the lute and
its function in both genre paintings and the sex trade of Dutch society. Who taught
prostitutes how to play the lute? What type of song books were most commonly used, or
did the harlots improvise most of their music? Was there a standard protocol for the
manner in which a prostitute conducted business with her lute? In addition to these
questions, future research on brothel depictions will expand to include paintings of the
tavern, where several artists have included the lute. Jan Steen’s In the Tavern from the
1660s and Drinking Party with a Lute Player (c. 1623) by Nicolas Tourniers are just two
examples that may require further study. Moreover, there may be additional questions
51 about what were previously considered aristocratic paintings of “merry company,” and
“garden party.” Prostitutes were involved in all social strata of Dutch society, and further
research about their involvement across these classes would be beneficial in expanding
studies about various types of genre paintings.
It will also be necessary to analyze some of the musical works of the time in
addition to conducting extended research on genre paintings; one excellent source of
information for this task would be the Dutch Song Database at the Meertens Institute in
Amsterdam. One of the preserved collections is that of Antonis van Butevest
(Buytevest), who was “a cake baker and brick merchant in Leyden.”100 Near the end of
the sixteenth century, Butevest apparently compiled both old and new songs in a
manuscript, which is held at the Leiden Municipal Archive. As explained on the Dutch
Song Database, “Butevest collected songs on prostitution, nymphomaniacal women,
deceit and drunkenness, along with the more decent love complaints and May songs.”101
The purpose of this thesis was to examine the lute’s role in the Dutch brothel
through the lens of Dutch genre paintings. By studying selected genre paintings, this
author has attempted to shine new light on an old topic. It is hoped that this work will
inspire art historians to reconsider the way they survey paintings that include music
instruments, especially in genre paintings. Although much research has been conducted
on Dutch culture during the seventeenth century, not nearly as much attention has been
devoted to music during this time. If this study enriched the understanding of Dutch
culture in the fields of art history and musicology, it is clear that future research will be
100
Dutch Song Database, Meertens Institute, Amsterdam,
http://www.liederenbank.nl/index.php?actie=grasduinen&lan=en (accessed June 10, 2010).
101
Ibid.
52 necessary to continue to seek and understand the importance of the sex trade and the lute
as represented through art.
53 ILLUSTRATIONS
Fig. 1: Hendrik Pot’s Vanity (c. 1633) is an early example using the angle of the lute to
signify important aspects of a brothel scene.
54 Fig. 2: Gabriel Metsu’s The Prodigal Son was painted in the 1640s and shows similar
characteristics to Nicolas Knüpfer’s Prodigal depiction.
55 Fig. 3: Frans van Mieris’s Brothel Scene was painted ca. 1658-1659.
56 Fig. 4: The Doctor’s Visit by Jan Steen now hangs in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
57 Fig. 5: Dirck van Baburen’s The Procuress was painted in 1622 and features an
expensive lute with a heart-shaped pearl inlay.
58 Fig. 6: Gerrit van Honthorst’s Supper Party was painted in 1620 and hangs in
Florence, Italy, at the Uffizi Gallery. The symbolism of the lute and the
performer’s arm become enhanced by the similar angle produced by a
prostitute who feeds a piece of chicken to a potential customer.
59 Fig. 7: In The Procuress (1625), Gerard Van Honthorst carefully uses the light of a candle
to help create lute symbollism.
60 Fig. 8: Nicolaus Knüpfer’s Brothel Scene (c. 1650) features an elaborate scene enriched
by a female lute player.
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