Molenaer's earliest known dated paintings are from 1629, (Mittelrheinisches Landsmuseum , Mainz, no. 831, National Gallery, London, no. 5416, and Kunsthaus, Heyslof, Worms, cat. 1927, pl. 18), five years prior to the date the present lot was executed. These, and other youthful works by the artist (he would have been around 24 years old when the present lot was painted) form a recognizable group in their strong bright colors, static figure grouping and relatively large scale figures, (see, for example, Woman at Her Toilet, the Toledo Museum of Art, no. 75.21, dated 1633.) Peter Sutton, in the introduction to his exhibition catalogue, Masters of Seventeenth Century Dutch Genre Painters, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, and Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1984, p. XXXIV, writes "...in his colorful, large and vividly characterized figures, Molenaer is an important but often neglected forerunner of the great Jan Steen."

His later genre paintings from towards the end of the 1630s through the 1640s are less static and freer in technique. By the 1650s and '60s he was painting peasant scenes reminiscent of the Ostades, which are often substantially inferior in quality to the works of his youth and early maturity.

Molenaer appears to have returned to the present composition in an undated work in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, no. c140. However, the more animated figure grouping and the addition of an extra figure (a gentleman standing in the open doorway) all suggest a slightly later date of execution for the Amsterdam picture.

The decoration on the virginal is in the style of that used by the Ruckers family