The musical culture in the Dutch Golden Age (c.1580-1670) was, in the absence of large, institutional patrons such as churches and courts, a predominantly urban, middle-class phenomenon. The people who made music and employed professional musicians as performers, music teachers or composers were mainly the rulers and burghers of a town or city. The musical culture was a highly lively one: rich and poor, young and old, sang the folk tunes everybody knew and the thousands of songs that were current in published form. Many people played an instrument and the lute was a familiar object, especially in higher circles.

The popularity of the lute is immediately obvious from the frequent appearance of the instrument in Dutch paintings. Innumerable genre paintings show people who are making music, and the instrument most commonly depicted is the lute. It is usually realistically rendered, both as far as its outward appearance and the musical context are concerned. We see lutenists as solo musicians, as the accompanists of singers, and playing in ensembles; there, the lute will often have been an accompanying basso continuo instrument.

Dutch paintings of that era were often symbolic in intent and contained a somewhat disguised message, such as a moral lesson or a warning. In that visual symbolism the lute could play different roles, so divergent that they could, in fact, be mutually exclusive. The lute could stand for the sense of hearing, for music and hence for harmony, both in society and in love, particularly in marriage. On the other hand, the lute as a musical instrument could also be a symbol of transience and human vanity. Music was supposed to have a wholesome effect on melancholy and was furthermore considered a powerful means to arouse love. As such the lute was associated with the love between man and woman, in a positive but also in a negative sense: it often symbolised purely physical love, combining all the negative connotations of lust, illicit love and adultery. In the frequent brothel scenes the lute is hardly ever lacking; it is either played or hanging on the wall. Following this, finally, the lute symbolised the female sex and the female sex organ in particular.