Lute of the Month

March

Hendrick ter Brugghen (1588 - 1629)
Lute player
1624
National Gallery, London. No. 6347

Hendrick ter Brugghen was born in Deventer in the Netherlands and became a pupil of Bloemaert before travelling to Italy for ten years from 1604 - 1614. He returned to the Netherlands in 1616 and settled in Utrecht where he became one of the leading painters of so-called Utrecht school. Some people claim he was heavily inflenced by Caravaggio but apart from some works with strong light and shade contrasts, this doesn't seem to be a very helpful description. This picture is often shown as the defining illustration of a 10 course lute. However there are a number of problems with it that make it most unsuitable to be seen as the representative example of such an instrument. The number of strings seems at first sight very obvious. If you count them where they can clearly be seen just below the end of the fingerboard, it is plainly a ten course lute with nine double courses and one single top course just visible by the point of the arrow in this detail. However, if we now look at the nut in this detail, you can equally clearly see eleven courses with ten double and the top single! Moreover the top nut overhangs the bass edge of the fingerboard in just the way we have come to expect as typical of eleven course lutes. (The classic example of this detail of course is the painting of Mouton in the Louvre.) Also there is a treble rider, which, while not a universal distinguishing feature, does usually go with an eleven rather than a ten course lute. Indeed, the usual explanation of the conversion of ten to eleven course lutes is of the addition of a treble rider as well as the changing of the second course from double to single thus giving a total of two "extra" pegs which can be used for the extra double bass course. These additional strings mean that the string band is now too wide for the fingerboard and so the nut was extended to overhang and take the eleventh course outside the line of the fingerboard. In general this seems to fit the existing iconography and surviving lutes very well, but there are exceptions such as pictures of ten course lutes with treble riders and, as here, pictures of eleven course lutes with double strings on the second course. So I fear what we have here is the not-unknown phenomenon of the artist more interested in picture composition than in supplying organologists with an easy life! It seems that in this case what ter Brugghen was more interested in, was showing a disreputable lutenist. His hat has a prominent showy feather which for Dutch artists of this period was used as a symbol of affections too easily swayed, moved by every small breeze. His lute, as Mike Lowe remarked in a lecture a few years ago, has clearly several loose bars so that the soundboard has sunk at the edges in an alarming way. Also the peg in the treble rider is too long and is clearly meant to be an ill-fitting replacement. Finally his face is suspiciously red-nosed, leading to the suspicion that he is drunk and probably not singing in tune! There is also another version of this gentleman by ter Brugghen where he is accompanied by a buxom woman of ill repute. Unfortunately my copy of that painting is not good enough for me to see whether it is a ten or eleven course lute. In fact, as far as I can count the string grooves in the nut, it is a double strung nine course lute. It certainly does not have an overhanging top nut. The general sense of a moralising intent in the painting however is even more explicit. The ironic use of the Guidonian hand motif is particularly telling. Hendrick ter Brugghen Duet 1628, Louvre, Paris

Bob Purrenhage has emailed this interesting additional observation about the main picture: "Just an odd observation on the first painting: The detail of the peg head does not show any pointy ends of the treble side pegs passing through to the bass side of the peg head. It hardly looks as though there would be space between the peg tops which we do see on the bass side. So apparently the painter was not really interested in getting the details correct - there and likely elsewhere as well?"

If anyone has any comments about these pictures which differ from or expand on mine, please do either email me direct or submit them to the lutenet at antispam/lute@cs.dartmouth.edu and I will add them to this page. Do please adjust this address by hand to remove antispam/

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