The Music Lesson

Description

Gerard ter Borch specialized in small-scale portraits and scenes of everyday life. He often painted images like this one, featuring military officers and elegant young women conversing, making music, or exchanging letters. Here, a lady plays an elaborate stringed instrument, the double-headed lute, while her companion marks the tempo for her. He is presumably her music instructor, but the similarity in their ages and the presence of the bed in the background make the precise relationship of the figures tantalizingly ambiguous.

Provenance

Possibly sold Amsterdam, October 1, 1738, no. 19 for 200 florins [according to Gudlaugsson 1960; see Gerard Hoet, Catalogus of naamlyst van Schilderyen (The Hague, 1752), p. 556]. Probably Johan Pieter Wierman, Leyden; his sale, Amsterdam, August 18, 1762, no. 34 to Diemen [price and buyer according to an annotated sale catalogue in the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague; although the provenance of this painting and the Getty example have been confused in the past, the AIC view was probably in the Wierman collection because the music master is described as beating time with a – strykstok – or bow]. Probably Jan Jacob Brants (died 1813); sold his sale Pieter Yver, Amsterdam, April 20, 1813, lot 30 for 275 florins to Jer. deVries [price and buyer according to an annotated sale catalogue in the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague; although the provenance of this painting and the Getty example have been confused in the past, the AIC view was probably in the Brants collection because the music master is described as beating time with a – strijkstok – or bow]. Possibly John Fairlie, Esq. [according to Smith 1833]; possibly his sale, 1830, for 130 gs to Michael Peacock [sale information according to Smith 1833]; possibly Michael Peacock (died 1843), London; possibly sold his sale Foster and Son, February 28, 1844, lot 12. Presumably Prince Anatole Demidoff, Villa San Donato, near Florence (died 1870); by descent to his nephew Prince Paul Demidoff (died 1885) and later to Paul Demidoff’s widow Helena Troubetskoi, Pratolino, near Florence [according to an entry in William French’s 1889 travel notebook dated April 19, 1889, the painting was on view with the Demidoff collection in Pratolino, Art Institute Archives]; included in the group of 13 paintings from the Demidoff collection sold to trustees of the Art Institute through Durand-Ruel, Paris, in 1890; purchase price reimbursed by Charles T. Yerkes, 1890.

The Music Lesson

Gerard ter Borch

c. 1670

Accession Number

512

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

63.6 × 50.4 cm (25 × 19 7/8 in.); Framed: 84.8 × 70.8 × 6.4 cm (33 3/8 × 27 7/8 × 2 1/2 in.)

Classification

Painting

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

Gift of Charles T. Yerkes

Tags

Painting Baroque (1600–1750) Oil Painting Canvas Color: Orange Color: Brown

Background & Context

Background Story

Gerard ter Borch (1617-1681) was a Dutch painter known for the precisely observed, elegant genre scenes of Dutch domestic life that make him one of the most important genre painters of the Dutch Golden Age. The Music Lesson from c. 1670 depicts a music lesson in the precisely observed, elegant manner that distinguishes ter Borch's best genre scenes from the more boisterous work of his contemporaries. The c. 1670 date places this in ter Borch's most productive period, when he was producing the precisely observed, elegant genre scenes of Dutch domestic life that are his most accomplished works, and the music lesson subject shows his talent for depicting the refined domestic life of the Dutch upper class.

Cultural Impact

The Music Lesson is important in the history of Dutch genre painting because it demonstrates the precisely observed, elegant manner that ter Borch brought to domestic genre scenes as one of the most important genre painters of the Dutch Golden Age. Ter Borch's precisely observed, elegant genre scenes—depicting the refined domestic life of the Dutch upper class with precise observation and elegant composition—represent one of the most accomplished traditions in Dutch genre painting, and the c. 1670 painting shows this tradition at its most elegant.

Why It Matters

The Music Lesson is ter Borch's elegant Dutch genre: a music lesson rendered in the precisely observed, refined manner of one of the most important genre painters of the Dutch Golden Age. The c. 1670 painting shows the refined domestic life of the Dutch upper class depicted with the precise observation and elegant composition that make ter Borch one of the most accomplished genre painters.