A woman in a green velvet gown sits at a richly ornamented virginal, her right hand poised on the keys while her gaze lifts upward in rapt attention. Two cherubs crowd beside her on the left, one reaching up as if to touch her arm, the other peering over the edge of the instrument. Another putto, its back turned, leans against the base of the virginal and looks up at her, its wings rendered with quick, feathery strokes.

The woman’s golden skirt spills across the marble floor in deep folds, catching the light in broad, luminous sweeps of paint. A red drapery billows in the upper right, partly framing a fourth cherub who hovers with a garland of flowers. The woman’s face is pale and luminous, her parted lips and wide eyes conveying a sense of spiritual ecstasy or inspiration.

Delicate highlights pick out the gold embroidery on her bodice and the transparent veil that falls from her shoulder. The virginal itself is decorated with gilded reliefs and intricate carvings, its lid propped open to reveal the keys and part of the mechanism inside. A single slipper lies abandoned at her feet, suggesting a moment of absorbed performance interrupted.

The composition is arranged so that the main figure forms a sweeping diagonal from lower right to upper left, echoed by the gestures of the putti and the folds of her dress. The palette is dominated by greens, golds, and warm flesh tones, set off by the cooler greys of the architecture and the soft pinks of the cherubs’ skin. The paint is handled with visible, fluid brushstrokes, especially in the drapery and background, giving the scene a sense of movement and immediacy. Peter Paul Rubens completed Saint Cecilia playing the virginal between circa 1639 and circa 1640, as established by the museum’s records.