c. 1550—Netherlands

Artist Martin van Heemskerck includes a trombone-playing muse in his panel painting, Apollo and the Muses (see detail and full image, below; public domain; wikimedia commons) (New Orleans Museum of Art). This instrument appears to be relaitvely small and is perhaps an alto trombone. Colin Slim proposes the date 1546 in his article, “On Parnassus with Maarten van Heemskerck,” part II (Musica Disciplina, 1997).