Lutes, harps and open songbooks: the choir that fills the upper register of an altarpiece.
Angel musicians are the decorative end of the tradition and the most informative. Because painters worked from instruments they could see, these panels are a record of what was actually being played: lutes, portative organs, rebecs, shawms, and the way a player's hands sat on them. Musicologists read them as evidence; they were painted as the border of somebody else's altarpiece.
Hans Memling
