VOUET, Simon
(b. 1590, Paris, d. 1649, Paris)

Parnassus or Apollo and the Muses (detail)

c. 1640
Oil on panel
Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest

The picture shows the central figure of the painting. Apollo Musagetes, the leader of the Muses fills his role as a " kitharodos" or a siger accompanied by a kithara. He is playing a finely arched, six-stringed lyre with a very small sound box, just like the one imagined since the early Renaissance to resemble the instrument of the classical gods.