The Lute Player, Nicolas Tournier (montbéliard, 1590 – Toulouse, C. 1638)

Nicolas Tournier (Montbéliard, 1590 – Toulouse, c. 1638) Workshop/follower

The Lute Player  

Oil on round canvas Diameter 46 cm. Framed, diameter 61 cm.  

Provenance: Sotheby’s London, Old Master Paintings, 6 July 2000, lot 304 (attributed to a follower of Nicolas Tournier) Estimate: (€6,350 – €9,500), Hammer price: (€7,600)  

Full details (click HERE)  

The compositional choice and style of this interesting portrait of a young lute player reveal, at first glance, its marked Caravaggesque influence, both in the strong chiaroscuro – skilfully applied here – and in the incidence of light which, coming from an external source, makes the musician’s solid figure stand out against the monochrome background.  

The young man is portrayed here in half-length, turned three-quarters of the way, wearing an elegant feathered hat lined with fur, and a shirt with wide sleeves in amaranth red, topped by a waistcoat and a Sienna-coloured cloak.  

He turns his gaze towards the viewer and seems to be asking for attention to follow his melody, caught in the act during an informal concert or a rehearsal session.  

The mysterious charm he exudes stems from numerous details in the painting that do not go unnoticed: from the vivid red of his lips, which stand out against the perfect oval of his face, to his dreamy gaze, magically captured in the moment.  The musical instrument, positioned diagonally and held with great determination by the musician, stands out in the foreground, reaching out towards the observer so as to break down the barrier between the painted space and real space.  

All these elements evoke the numerous figures of young musicians that Caravaggio immortalised during his stay in Rome – among the most celebrated are those in the ‘Concerto’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York – a theme later taken up by numerous Caravaggisti, followers of the master, who reinterpreted its content in the early decades of the 17th century.  

Analysis of the work, in particular, allows us to attribute its execution to a painter from the small circle of French artists who were followers of Caravaggio in Rome, evoking in particular the models conceived by Nicolas Tournier (Montbéliard, 1590 – Toulouse, c. 1638), an extraordinary artist who, together with Nicolas Régnier, was perhaps the most important of the French Caravaggisti.  

Tournier lived in Rome from 1619 to 1626, where he developed a pictorial style very similar to that of Bartolomeo Manfredi, a contemporary of Caravaggio and his closest follower.  

We find this type of subject in many of his compositions, thanks to which the artist gained great fame and success among collectors, making it his speciality, in which  the highly realistic rendering of the figures is accompanied by an iconography of great character.  

Here we cite, for example, the ‘Guitar Player’ in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence (https://catalogo.fondazionezeri.unibo.it/scheda/opera/101055/), and also the ‘Flute Player’ in the Tosio Martinengo Art Gallery in Brescia (https://www.lombardiabeniculturali.it/ opere-arte/schede/D0090-00215/).   

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:  

The images were taken using professional photographic equipment.  

The painting is sold complete with an attractive gilded frame and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity and a descriptive iconographic sheet.  

Should the artwork be purchased by a foreign client, an export licence will be required, which takes approximately 10–20 days to process; our gallery will handle the entire process until the licence is obtained. All costs associated with this procedure are included.  

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