3-016-381 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

The Young Musicians, 1640. This type of painting of a group of children is frequent in the work of Antoine Le Nain. These small-format paintings depict children singing or playing, arranged in simple compositions such as the present one. Here the figures, which are all standing, are arranged almost in a straight line, with the three boys slightly more to the foreground occupying the centre and right half of the composition. Two of them are playing a small tambourine and a stringed instrument while the one in the middle is singing. Slightly behind them and on the left are two girls. The greys, browns and earth tones that prevail in the foreground and in the clothes of the children contrast with some areas of bright, strong local colour such as the red of two of the jackets and the blue apron.