Attributed to Caspar Netscher (?Heidelberg 1639-1684 The Hague)

This picture is comparable on stylistic grounds with the work of Caspar Netscher in the late 1650s, when he was completing his training in the workshop of Gerard ter Borch in Deventer. In style and conception it is close to ter Borch's painting of A Woman Playing the Theorbo-Lute and a Cavalier, datable to c. 1658, in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (the woman could even be the same model). Netscher moved to The Hague around 1658, where he continued to paint genre scenes in the style of his master. The rug in this picture is identical to one in a painting by Netscher signed and dated '1669' in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.