Over the fireplace is inlet in the wainscoting an attractive subject representative of “Music,” executed in _grisaille_ on canvas, in clever simulation of a marble bas-relief. It is signed by its painter, Jacob de Wit, a native of Amsterdam, born 1695, died 1754, who “attained a marvellous excellence in the imitation of sculpture of all kinds of materials, bronze, wood, plaster, and particularly white marble, in which he produced such complete illusion that even the practised eye is deceived.” His most notable work of this kind was the decoration, in 1736, of a hall in the Hôtel de Ville of Amsterdam; and it is further stated by Kugler that “a favourite subject with the master was the representation of pretty children in the taste of Fiammingo.” The present picture, in the satisfying arrangement of its composition and in the grace of its flowing lines, possesses a more legitimate artistic value than could come from any merely imitative dexterity in rendering the effect of sculpture by means of painting. The musicians are a party of naked, chubby children. The figure of their leader is an especially charming one, standing holding up a music-book in one hand, beating time with a roll of papers held as a baton in the other, and singing with open mouth; his raised face, with the soft hair clustering about the rounded cheeks, wearing an entranced expression which embodies the very spirit of melody. Beside him one of his infant musicians touches the wires of a lyre, another bends over a great mandoline, of which a third is tightening the strings, and a fourth breathes softly on the flute.