Oil on canvas mounted on canvas. Anonymous artist of the 17th century, after the ca. 1660 painting by Gerrit Dou, now in the Louvre museum. 13 x 12 inches. 28.5 x 25.5 cm.

The single figure of a trumpeter playing his instrument exists in Netherlandish art at least since the beginning of the 17th century, as for example in a drawing by Jacques de Gheyn. The figure of a single trumpeter in a window appears first in a painting by Gerrit Dou from the early 1660s and the present work is modeled on that painting.

 Here, a richly adorned man in a plumed hat is shown sounding a trumpet from a elaborately draped window. An ancient instrument which held important symbolic meaning, the trumpet is already mentioned in the Bible (the divine command to Moses: "'Make thee two trumpets of silver...," the "trumpets of Jericho" or the trumpets which shall sound on the Day of the Last Judgment).  In the early fifteenth century, the form of the trumpet developed from the long straight into a folded one; at first to an S-shape, then with this S-shape folded back on itself to a loop—a more compact arrangement that has since remained standard and which is seen here.