Baschenis’s still lifes of musical instruments became so famous throughout Italy that, in the 1640s, he founded a workshop to produce copies and variants of his picture. The instruments depicted here are among those played by chamber ensembles that performed for invited guests in private homes. Many of Baschenis’s images are rich in symbolic meanings. The lute, for example, was the instrument of love, and many amorous songs were composed for it. Here, the dusty and abandoned lute and the hourglass also seem to function as vanitas elements, alluding to the passage of time.

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