By the early 1780s, Marguerite Gérard had produced many genre paintings featuring affluent women making music, taking lessons or, as here, rehearsing for informal concerts.
Inspired by 17th-century Dutch paintings, such scenes function on two levels. On one hand, they illustrate the expectation that young women of the upper classes were expected to be accomplished in various social arts,
chiefly music.
Here, the female singer is clad in a sumptuous white satin gown, attire often seen on Gérard’s female subjects. She pauses to gaze up at her male accompanist, perhaps in response to a romantic overture.
The musical instrument shown in this painting is typical of European guitars from the 18th and 19th centuries. Smaller than the modern guitar, it has a flat bottom, a decorative rosette set into the sound hole, and only
five strings (versus the now common six).
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