| Brief Description | Depiction of a domestic Dutch interior. Oil, genre painting of the typical Dutch 17th-century style. A maid stands in the centre of the room cleaning pots on top of a barrel. Beside her, there are two children, seated, one playing a wooden descant recorder. There is bread and what appears to be a glass of beer sat on the table behind the children. There is also a spinning wheel and a basket of dishes in the foreground. The monogram 'Q' was discovered by Mr Dick (Conservator at the Scottish National Gallery) 1977/8, relating to Quiringh Gerritsz van Brekelenkam, born c.1622 and died c.1669, at Leyden. Painting was in Principal's office. |
| Object History Note | The object was displayed in the first exhibition ('100 Curiosities') at King's Museum which opened in April 2011. |
| Caption | "The boy playing the recorder This young man has been well instructed, or the artist himself knew how to play the recorder - possibly both, for the playing position is near-perfect. He sits upright on a wooden chair without arms, his feet side by side on the floor ( no crossed legs!). The recorder is at an angle of 45 degrees to his body, a comfortable position and the best to project the recorder's sound. The boy's cheeks and lips are relaxed, and the recorder is held centrally, not at the side of the mouth (which is the best position for playing the cornet). His elbows rest close to the side of his body, enabling his upper left thumb - which is critical in recorder playing- to be in an almost vertical position upon its hole ( the thumb-nail should touch the recorder). This means that the wrists are low, almost beneath the instrument, with an obtuse angle between the forearm and the back of the hand, so that the fingers are curved over the instrument, not bent upwards above it, or sideways on. Tthis is the position so beautifully shown by the French engraver, Bernard Picart, to illustrate Jacques Hotteterre Le Romain's 1707 tutor Principles of the Flute,Recorder and Oboe (Lasocki, London 1968, p. 72). The topsof the fingers form a sort of plateau. The anonymous writer of an English recorder tutor published around 1739 ( The Second Book of the Flute Master Improv'd) says 'keep your fingers in a Direct Line from ye holes they Stop, neither bringing your Nuckles higher of lower but eaven with your fingers ends which will give every finger a greater Comand of ye holes it stops & is much hansomer for Sight.' The boy's recorder The boy playing the recorder occupies a very small part of the total area of this picture, and his instrument is of course much smaller still, too small for the artist to show any details of its surface. So the sound-producing 'window-labium' cannot be seen and the finger-holes are covered by the boy's fingers. He could be playing a six-holed pipe (duct-flute), usually knows as a flageolet, often shown by pastoral artists in the hands of shepherds. In most versions of this instrument, such as the Irish tin whistle, there are no thumb holes, so that the fingers can then be held sideways on, avoiding the need to angle the wrists. The relaxed lips; and cheeks of the player make it unlikely that a reed instrumant such as a small shawm is depicted here. Moreover, the recorder was very popular in Holland and the 17th century ( and still is), and was often shown played in domestic environments and by amateurs and children. Reed instruments were more usually played by professionals out of doors. The raucous loud sound of a shawm within a house would; have upset, rather than delighted, the baby. The instrument is cylindrical externally, although the bore could be complex, for example narrowing then widening ('choke bore') near the bottom end, the bell. Instruments of this kind produce a rich open sound, with strong low notes, very different from the recorders re-designed around 1660 in France and elsewhere, with a more reedy penetrating tone to be on equal terms with violins. These later 'baroque' recorders are the design basis of most modern instruments. Interestingly, the bell end of the boy's recorder has a shape similar to that shown by Sebastian Virdung long before in the illustrations to his Musica getutscht (Basel, 1511). These simple 'Renaissance' recorders, often made in one piece of wood without joints, differ greatly from the later 'baroque' instruments with their bulges and rings. 'Renaissance' recorders should of course always be used in performances of the music of that period, by composers such as Byrd, Gibbons, Holborne and Bassano. At first glance the boy seems to be playing a soprano or descant recorder in C, a pitch which was becoming established at the time of the painting. it looks a little longer, However, and may therefore represent the common Renaissance alto in G, about 4' longer than our descant."
Author: Anthony Rowland-Jones Date: October 2003 Purpose: scholarly.comment
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