The Story
Woman Playing a Guitar by Simon Vouet. Purchase, 2017 Benefit Fund; Lila Acheson Wallace Gift; Mary Trumbull Adams and Victor Wilbour Memorial Funds; Friends of European Paintings and Henry and Lucy Moses Fund Inc. Gifts; Gift of Julia A. Berwind, by exchange; Charles and Jessie Price, Otto Naumann, Mr. and Mrs. Richard L. Chilton Jr., and Sally and Howard Lepow Gifts; Charles B. Curtis Fund; and Theodocia and Joseph Arkus Gift, 2017
Created in 1623 during the Baroque period, this work belongs firmly within the portrait tradition. Simon Vouet worked at a moment when the rivalry between Catholic Baroque drama and Protestant restraint reshaped what a painting could mean. Every gesture, fabric, and gleam of light was decoded by contemporary viewers like a private language.
Executed in Oil on canvas, measuring 42 × 29 7/8 in. (106.5 × 75.8 cm), the surface rewards close looking. Simon Vouet builds the composition through layered glazes and a tightly controlled palette, letting cool shadows recede so that the warm, lit passages step forward. The brushwork shifts from the precise to the almost dissolved — a hallmark of mature Baroque practice.
“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”
