A Bagpiper Playing for Four Dancing Monkeys, anonymous, after Adriaen Pietersz van de Venne, 1617
engraving, h 226mm × w 167mm More details
The oboe is often associated with pastoral images because its sound recalls that of shawms and bagpipes. A bagpiper features in this print. From the 1650s onwards, composers increasingly used the oboe with its penetrating, nasal voice to add lustre to bucolic and festive scenes.
