Stevens was best known for his finely detailed representations of the domestic life of haute-bourgeois French women. In particular, he excelled at the depiction of rich fabrics and interiors. The harpist here is Stevens’s wife, Marie, who has just finished playing, a congratulatory bouquet in hand. The pensive musician is echoed by the bronze statue of a lute player behind her. The statue is one of many versions of a popular sculpture by Paul Dubois, A Florentine Singer from the Fifteenth Century, 1865, which was available in several sizes.
The French aesthete and poet Robert de Montesquiou dedicated his poem Une Musicienne (A Musician) to both Stevens and this painting. The poem’s first stanza can be roughly translated as:
Admirable painting by Stevens: a woman,
Both strong, and pensive, seated, holding
her breath
To hear in her heart, the quivering and
clamoring beat
of the suspended melody, about to end.
