A young woman, wearing an orange dress, is seated at the centre of the composition, playing the clavichord. She turns her head to look over her right shoulder at a bearded middle-aged man wearing a turban, who stands behind her. To the right is a woman-servant in a green dress, with her face shown in profile.

The painting can be interpreted in several ways. It may be a straightforward portrait-group; with its three-figure composition it bears some resemblance to Titian’s The Concert of 1510-1 (Palazzo Pitti. Florence). The portrait-group may be a family; in early Royal Collection inventories the picture was attributed to Pordenone and described as a portrait of the artist with ‘his wife his Daughter playing on the virginalls.’ It is also possible, and perhaps most likely, that the scene is one of commercial seduction. The link between Music and Love was a commonplace of the period, and pentimenti suggest the man and woman were originally in a more intimate pose; it is clear that at one time the man’s right sleeve originally crossed the young woman’s, with his hand presumably on her waist.