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In this slender painting, three musicians play their instruments – a large triangle with rings, a recorder and a lyre. None of them look out at the viewer, and two actually turn away, a pose for which Crespi was well known. A turbaned man pulling his horse by the bridle looms over the trio. To the left, in almost complete darkness, are three soldiers, with several more on horseback behind them. Crespi’s use of dazzling light and deep shadow leads us through this nocturnal scene, from the lower musician’s crossed legs to the captivated child on the left, up to the upper bodies of the main figures and the forearm thrust out above them. He applied thick paint in the lightest areas, creating luminous effects in the white sleeves and exposed skin of the musicians, with thinner layers in shadowed areas.