The harpsichord's upturned lid is decorated with an Arcadian landscape; its bright coloring stands in contrast to the two paintings hanging on the wall to the right and left.

The musical theme in Dutch painting in Vermeer's time often connoted love and seduction, but in this case the feeling is more ambiguous.

Although the presence of Van Baburen's sexually exuberant picture suggests such an interpretation, its function may be to provide a contrast with the actual domestic situation.

[5] Even before the actual robbery, the theft of this painting was the subject of a 1964 episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour called "Ten Minutes from Now".

[8] Following the real theft, the stolen painting has figured in the novels Death at the Sign of the Rook (2024) by Kate Atkinson; An Object of Beauty (2010) by Steve Martin;[9] The Medusa Plot (2011) by Gordon Korman;[10] and The Collector (2023) by Daniel Silva.