The musician, attributed to Antoine VOLLON (1833-1900)

Antoine Vollon began his artistic training with an enamelled cast-iron manufacturer, before training in engraving at the Lyon Ecole des Beaux-Arts from 1851. Continuing his apprenticeship by studying the great masters, he spent time in Paris, Italy, Belgium and Holland. A disciple of the realist painter Théodule Ribot (1823-1891), he excelled in still lifes and genre scenes.

Drawing on the Dutch pictorial tradition and the work of Jean Siméon Chardin (1699-1779), his art blends romantic temperament and realist language. In his 1893 book Les Salons: étude de critique et d'esthétique, art critic Théophile Thoré (1807-1869) even described him as the "Chardin of the 19th century".

Le Jeune musicien au chapeau recaptures the luminous contrast that is the painter's singularity and modernity, through a genre painting that differs from his still lifes.

The quality of the material is his primary concern. The light is focused on the young man's face, as well as on his right hand.