Still Life with Musette and Violin

Artist Jean-Baptiste Oudry (French, 1686-1755)

Place of OriginFrance

Date1725

DimensionsH: 34 1/2 in. (87.6 cm); W: 25 3/4 in. (65.4 cm)

MediumOil on canvas.

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1951.500

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 26, Rotunda

Label TextThe musette was a type of bagpipe much in vogue with the French aristocracy in the 18th century. The sheet music depicted here is “Divin sommeil” (“Divine Sleep”), composed by Louis Lemaire and published in 1718 in Receuil d’airs sérieux et à boire (Collection of Solemn Airs and Drinking Songs). The song petitions Sleep to spare imbibers upon tasting a new wine. This is a version of a rectangular composition that Oudry painted to be installed above a door in a room as part of a series representing the Four Elements. The original version of Toledo’s composition symbolized the element of Air (air being necessary to play the musette and music itself being carried to the listener’s ear through the air).Published ReferencesGrigaut, R.L., "Baroque and Rococo France in Toledo," Art Quarterly, XIX, Spring, 1956, p. 53, fig. 4.

de Mirimonde, A.P., "Les oeuvres francaises à sujet de musique au musée du Louvre, II. Natures mortes des XVIIIe et XIXe siècles," Revue du Louvre, 1965, no. 1, p. 114, fig. 4.

Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, European Paintings, Toledo, 1976, pp. 119-120, pl. 199.

Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, no. 133, March 1952, repr. on cover.

"French Paintings: For a New Gallery in the Toledo Museum, Ohio," Illustrated London News, vol. 227, Aug. 13, 1955, p. 271 repr.

"The Age of Versailles for Ohio," Art News, vol. 54, Nov. 1955, repr. p. 31.

"French Art 1600-1800," Toledo Musuem of Art Museum News, vol. 3, no. 4, Autumn 1960, p. 92, repr. p. 93.

Wittmann, Otto, "L'Art francais au Musee de Toledo," Connaisance, no. 125, July 1962, pp. 40-47, appendix, p. 111, repr. p. 44.

Watson, F. J. B., "Eighteenth-Century Painting and Decorative Arts," Apollo, vol. 86, no. 70, Dec. 1967, repr. fig. 19, p. 462.

Opperman, Hal N., Jean-Baptiste Oudry, New York, 1977, vol. I, pp. 79, 546, (no. P 492) vol. II, repr. fig. 128, p. 1036.

Vial, Jane, "Musical Instruments: Woodwinds," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 20, no. 4, 1978, p. 102, repr. fig. 14.

"J.-B. Oudry 1686-1755" Le Petit Journal, no. 122, 1982, p. [2], repr.

Kirkendale, Warren, "Miscellanea: Music of Louis Lemaire Painted by Jean-Baptiste Oudry, 1725," Imago Musicae, vol. xvi/xvii, 1999/2000, p. 255, repr.

Exhibition HistoryParis, Galerie Charpentier, La Vie Silencieuse, 1946, no. 50.

The Toledo Museum of Art, Musical Instruments, 1952.

Paris, Grand Palais, J.-B. Oudry, 1982, no. 33, pp. 86-88, repr.

Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, J.-B. Oudry, 1983, no. 18, pp. 114, 116, repr.

Flint Institute of Arts, To Be, Or Not To Be: Four Hundred Years of Vanitas Painting, 2006, no. 16, p. 80, repr. p. 81.