Hendrick ter Brugghen in the context of Dirck van Baburen

A duet (Italian: duo or duetto) is a musical composition for two performers in which the performers have equal importance to the piece, often a composition involving two singers or two pianists. It differs from a harmony, as the performers take turns performing a solo section rather than performing simultaneously. A piece performed by two pianists performing together on the same piano is a "piano duet" or "piano four hands". A piece for two pianists performing together on separate pianos is a "piano duo".

"Duet" is also used as a verb for the act of performing a musical duet, or colloquially as a noun to refer to the performers of a duet.

Gerard "Gerrit" van Honthorst (4 November 1592 – 27 April 1656) was a Dutch Golden Age painter who became known for his depiction of artificially lit scenes, eventually receiving the Italian nickname Gherardo delle Notti ("Gerard of the Nights"). Early in his career he visited Rome, where he had great success painting in a style influenced by Caravaggio. Following his return to the Netherlands he became a leading portrait painter. Van Honthorst's contemporaries included Utrecht painters Hendrick ter Brugghen and Dirck van Baburen.

Utrecht Caravaggism (Dutch: Utrechtse caravaggisten) refers to the work of a group of artists who were from, or had studied in, the Dutch city of Utrecht, and during their stay in Rome during the early seventeenth century had become distinctly influenced by the art of Caravaggio. Upon their return to the Dutch Republic, they worked in a so-called Caravaggist style, which in turn influenced an earlier generation of local artists as well as artists in Flanders. The key figures in the movement were Hendrick ter Brugghen, Gerrit van Honthorst and Dirck van Baburen, who introduced Caravaggism into Utrecht painting around 1620. After 1630 the artists moved in other directions and the movement petered out. The Utrecht Caravaggisti painted predominantly history scenes and genre scenes executed in a realist style.