From a funeral oration delivered in 1711 by Monsieur de Fermel’huis at the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture following Chéron’s death, and published in the following year, we learn that Joseph de Soleras had been her “maître de Luth.” Little is known of Soleras, but his name has turned up in association with a mascarade performed before several members of the royal family at Blois in 1658, an appearance that may have led to his later position as lutenist to Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans (1644-1670). Chéron thus received lute instruction from a well-placed musician; to date, no other source illuminates whether she formally studied the other instruments in her collection. One of her contemporaries, Dézallier d’Argentville, however, wrote that it was in her salon that she and her engraving apprentices played music in the evenings after work, following discussions about art and art theory with some of the leading intellectuals of the day:

One could often hear in this salon the brother [Louis Chéron], the sister [Élisabeth-Sophie], the illustrious [Roger] de Piles and several savants of the highest order discussing the most interesting points about painting and the fine arts. Music followed these excellent discourses; at the end of the day when she and her two nieces [Ursule and Jeanne de la Croix] left their palettes they made music, giving new proof of their melodious skill on several instruments.

The instruments in her collection, then, perhaps served her students, family, and friends as well as herself. The household inventory also reveals that she owned cases for several of her instruments: guitar, angélique, theorbo, and treble viol. Although these may have been intended for storage purposes in her home, they also may have been used to take the instruments out for music making or performances elsewhere. In any case, the instruments’ inventory presents strong evidence that her salon was a place for musical activity, for she had so many on hand. This salon must have been an exquisite spot, splendidly befitting the multi-talented artist. Her brother, Louis (1660-1713), had made several tableaux that hung on its walls: The Apotheosis of Hercules, Moses Strewing Water on the Fields, and Angelique and Médor.