Pieter de Grebber (Haarlem c. 1600-1652/4)

We are grateful to Peter Sutton for confirming the attribution on the basis of photographs. Pieter de Grebber started to paint half-length musical subjects in the early 1620s, probably under the influence of Frans Hals and the Utrecht Caravaggisti. Sutton dates the present work to the late 1620s, reckoning it to be slightly later than a comparable depiction of a girl singing, in tondo (Stockholm, Nationalmuseum).

Abe Gutnajer (1888-1942) was one of Warsaw's leading art dealers and antiquarians before the war, running a family business established in the 19th century. Under the decree of the Nazi occupying forces, he was forced to move to the Warsaw Ghetto in October 1940 and his abandoned collection was lost or confiscated. This painting was recently rediscovered in a private collection in Latvia and is offered by mutual agreement. This resolution was achieved with the assistance of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.