A peasant playing a bagpipe and an old woman listening with a dog

This painting is sold with a letter of expertise from Professor Justus Müller Hofstede attributing it to a follower of Bernhard Keil, called Monsù Bernardo. In fact it is closer to the work of the Lucchese painter Pietro Paolini. The old woman is an exact quotation from a painting by Paolini in a private collection in Lucca, Giovane donna che dipinge (see P. Giusti Maccari, Pietro Paolini pittore lucchese, Lucca, 1987, p. 159, no. 83, illustrated), although in that work the woman rests her hand on a skull. The distinctive bald head of the bagpiper can also be closely related to that of a lutenist by Paolini in a painting in the Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico, Suonatore di liuto (ibid., p. 136, no. 56, illustrated). Paolini, who had worked in Rome and Venice, returned to Lucca in 1631 where he painted cabinet pictures, often on musical themes, but with a strong emphasis on observation from nature. The naturalistic approach in this painting to the bagpiper, taking a quick breath, and the flask casually lying on the ledge at his elbow, are characteristic of Paolini's work.