The Lute Player

The greatest French follower of Caravaggio, Valentin was one of the most outstanding artists in seventeenth-century Rome. He frequently depicted scenes of music-making, drinking, and fortune-telling in the characteristically direct, vivid manner seen here. This image of a young soldier singing a love madrigal is unique in Valentin’s career and is perhaps emblematic of the sobriquet he took in Rome: Amador, Spanish for "lover boy." The painting was part of the collection of Cardinal Mazarin, minister to Louis XIV.

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