# Allegory of Music [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [LA HYRE, Laurent de]() - Date: 1601-1650 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 106 x 144 cm ## Commentary This is one of a series of half-length female figures of the seven Liberal Arts which once belonged to Gédéon Tallemant \(1613-1668\), one of the counselors of King Louis XIII, apparently painted for his house in the Rue d'Angoumois, Paris. The pictures vary in size, and all are dated 1649 or 1650. The Liberal Arts were the literary trio, Grammar, Rhetoric and Dialectic, and the mathematical quartet of Arithmetic, Music, Geometry and Astronomy. The allegorical figure of Music tunes a theorbo. At her shoulder is a songbird, symbol of natural music, whereas by contrast she may be a representation of modern music theory and practice. To the right are various contemporary instruments and scores: a lute, a violin, two recorders, a vocal exercise, and a song in two parts. This canvas was originally flanked by two music-making putti \(now in the Musée Magnin, Dijon\). <p> <table align=left cellpadding=5 border=1 width=320 bgcolor="\#99cccc"> <tr valign=middle><td><img src="/support/gif/listen.gif" border=0 valign=middle> Suggested listening \(streaming mp3, 14 minutes\):<br><a href="\#" onClick="w=window.open \('/music1/18\_cent/handel\_theorbo.html', 'newWin', 'scrollbars=yes,status=no,dependent=yes,screenX=0,screenY=0,width=350,height=350'\);w.opener=this;w.focus\(\);return true"><b>George Frideric Handel: Concerto for harp, lute and theorbo in B flat major</b></a> </td></tr></table> ## Related artworks - [Abraham Sacrificing Isaac]() - [Allegory of Arithmetic]() - [Allegory of Astronomy]() - [Allegory of Geometry]() - [Allegory of Geometry]() - [Allegory of Grammar]() - [Allegory of Grammar]() - [Allegory of the Regency]() - [Angelica and Medoro \(detail\)]() - [Angelica and Medoro]() - [Christ The Judge]() - [Cornelia Refusses the Crown of the Ptolomai]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()