Allegory of Music (1649) Laurent de La Hyre. La Hyre was a highly influential Parisian artist and one of the founding members of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, a state sponsored academy that had full control over that was deemed “Good Art” from the Mid-17th century until the early 19th century. This is the same academy that the Impressions rebelled against in the mid-19th century.

La Hyre was commissioned to paint all 7 of the Liberal Arts for a wealthy patron. The paintings are now housed all over the world in various collections. In case you were curious, the 7 Liberal Arts are Grammar,  Rhetoric, Logic, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy.