The support is a single, horizontally grained oak panel bevelled on all sides. The ground layer is transparent and yellowish. The paint layers were applied smoothly, with an extensive use of impasto for the figures. There is a pentimento in the hand of the woman playing the lute.

Good. The varnish is discoloured.

...; donated to the museum by Mr and Mrs D.A.J. Kessler-Hülsmann, Kapelle op den Bosch, near Mechelen, 1940

Object number: SK-A-3338

Credit line: Gift of Mr and Mrs Kessler-Hülsmann, Kapelle op den Bosch

Scenes of men and women playing music were often associated with harmonious love in the 17th century. That may be the case here, despite the fact that the figures are not looking at each other but seem to be staring into the distance, lost in their own thoughts. Standing on the bare floor in the centre of the main group is a glass of wine, but nobody seems to want a drink. Perhaps the artist was drawing attention to the temptation inherent in the combination of alcohol, music and earthly love.

The overmantel painting in the right background shows a ship on a calm sea, and may be a visual commentary on the conversation of the couple under the mantelpiece or on the lyrics of the company’s song.¹¹Amsterdam 1976, p. 211. A ship sailing across gentle waves was often associated with love in smooth waters. There are several 17th-century works in which a painting within the painting shows a ship at sea. Although there are numerous mentions of paintings of ships in 17th-century estate inventories (like maps, they were very common luxury goods), it is not impossible that the painting shown in this interior contains a clue to the meaning of the scene.²²Goedde 1989, pp. 148-56. This particular work is too worn to make out what is depicted on the map on the wall.

The painting is dated 1630, when Potter was living in Leiden. The work of Jan Davidsz de Heem, who was active in Leiden at the time, may have been a source of inspiration, but Pieter Codde and Willem Duyster of Amsterdam could have exerted some influence, as could Dirck Hals in Haarlem.³³Martin 1925; see also Playter 1972, pp. 93, 119-20, who mentions the influence of Codde and Dirck Hals, especially of the latter’s Cellist, Vienna, Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der bildenden Künste; illustrated in coll. cat. Vienna 1992, p. 165, no. 56. The man on the far left of Potter’s painting, who is shown from behind seated entirely in the shadows, serves as a repoussoir. Similar figures are found in Duyster’s oeuvre, such as his Soldiers beside a Fireplace.⁴⁴Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, John G. Johnson collection; illustrated in Philadelphia etc. 1984, p. 199. See also the figure on the far left in Interior with Figures, called La main chaude, attributed to Rembrandt, Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, c. 1628; illustrated in Kassel-Amsterdam 2001, p. 309. Potter’s work is clearly inferior to those by Codde and Duyster. The figures are not very convincing, and the palette is sober in the extreme, being dominated by brown and yellow.⁵⁵Németh 1999, pp. 125-26. Comparable paintings by Pieter Potter are in Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst, and one that appeared at auction in Cologne (Lempertz), 6 December 1997, no. 1215: Merry Company in an Interior.

Everhard Korthals Altes, 2007

See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
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This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 248.

Amsterdam 1976, pp. 210-11, no. 53

1976, p. 455, no. A3338; 2007, no. 248

E. Korthals Altes, 2007, 'Pieter Symonsz. Potter, A Musical Company in an Interior, 1630', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20026076