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

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   Orazio Gentileschi was one of the earliest and most gifted painters to be inspired by the genre scenes of Caravaggio in Rome. Here, he must have had in mind Caravaggio's famous picture on the same theme. Orazio's young woman listens intently to a note as it resonates in the pear–shaped body of the instrument. She may be tuning her lute in anticipation of the concert promised by the assortment of recorders, a cornetto and violin, and the song books lying open on the table before her.

   The graceful musician and her lute are seen, unexpectedly, from the back, turned three–quarters away from the spectator. Orazio's meticulous attention to detail is such that every surface is described with a precision of focus that gives pleasure to the eye. Dutch painters, famous for their amazingly illusionistic renderings of fabrics, improved their craft by studying Orazio's works. His gift for conveying the textures of fine cloth is shown off here in the sharp gold of the dress, the dull gleam of the scarlet velvet on the stool, and the matte softness of the dark–green cloth covering the table.

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