A musician

The Bavarian artist Christopher Paudiss began his studies in Hamburg before moving to Amsterdam in the late 1640s, where he entered the studio of Rembrandt van Rijn. In the late 1650s, the artist left the Netherlands to work under the patronage of the princely German courts. The present picture of a musician, dated 1661, during Paudiss’s period spent in Vienna, shows the continuing influence of Rembrandt on his mature career. This characterful study of an old man holding a pochette, an instrument often played by street musicians and dancing masters in the 17th century, displays the tonal qualities and incisive psychology that Paudiss would have been able to observe in the Rembrandt workshop. The figural composition and selective use of reflective light echoes works like Rembrandt’s 1653 Half-figure of a bearded man with beret (London, National Gallery) and Aristotle with a Bust of Homer (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art).