Exhibition of Works by Old Masters and by Deceased Masters of British School

The Royal Academy of Arts had inaugurated its annual Winter Exhibition of Old Masters in 1870, shortly after the move to Burlington House, and by 1876 it was an established fixture of the London art season. The 1876 edition brought together loan works from private and royal collections under the running title “Exhibition of Works by Old Masters and by Deceased Masters of British School.” The Music Lesson was included as catalogue no. 211, lent by Her Majesty the Queen, and entered in the catalogue under the title “The Music Master, and Pupil.”

The loan came from the Royal Collection, which had held the painting since 1762, when George III purchased the Venetian collection of Consul Joseph Smith. It had long been misattributed to Frans van Mieris the Elder; the correct attribution to Vermeer was made only in 1866 by the French critic Théophile Thoré, so the 1876 showing came just a decade after the painting was first recognised under Vermeer’s name.