TERBORCH, Gerard

Ter Borch’s fame rests mainly upon the genre pictures he made after the middle of the 17th century which help define the subjects and pictorial schemes used by many artists of his generation and those who worked later. What sets him apart is his mastery of subtle narration which can charge every episode with subdued tension. Few genre painters ever revealed more delicately the character of three individuals and their relation to each other as they ostensibly go about their business of making music in a drawing-room.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 19 minutes):

Francesco Maria Veracini: Suite in F Major

In the seventeenth-century Netherlands, middle-class life was a very common subject in the genre paintings of many artists, but Gerard Terborch gave a specific twist to this type of work. His domestic scenes show small groups or single figures at their everyday occupations, companionable or self-absorbed as the case may be.

The depiction of a peaceful moment is complemented by Terborch’s mastery of the depiction of materiality. He captures the precious silk of the dress in inimitable fashion, catching the viewer’s attention with his modulated highlights.

Ter Borch’s fame rests mainly upon the genre pictures he made after the middle of the 17th century which help define the subjects and pictorial schemes used by many artists of his generation and those who worked later. What sets him apart is his mastery of subtle narration which can charge every episode with subdued tension. His rendering of simple themes, such as a woman spinning, shows the same knowledge of people as his more ambitious pieces.

Several versions are known of the aristocratic interior by the artist.

Many artists have painted beautiful satins and silks, but no one has ever depicted satin more exquisitely than the much-travelled Dutchman Gerard Terborch. First trained by his father Gerard Terborch the Elder, who had lived in Italy in his youth, the precocious young painter worked in Amsterdam and Haarlem before venturing to Germany, Italy, England, France and Spain. In 1646 he went to M�nster, where he witnessed the ratification of the treaty of 1648 signaling the triumphant end of the Dutch wars of independence from Spain. In 1654, he married and settled down, permanently, in Deventer.

Whether miniature full-length portraits, or scenes of - supposedly - everyday life, Terborch’s pictures are distinguished by technical and psychological refinement. It seems curious, therefore, that he first specialised in guardroom subjects - although he brings even to the rowdy theme of garrisoned soldiers an element of stillness and reflection. His best-known paintings, however, represent elegant interiors with only a few figures, one of them usually a young woman in ravishing pale satin. Here, in an old-ivory bodice trimmed with fur and a white skirt setting off her fair hair, her shoe propped against a foot warmer, she plays the theorbo, an early form of lute, accompanying the man holding a song book. A man in a cloak looks on, and a spaniel seems to listen. Behind them is a curtained bed. Under the red Turkey carpet covering the table lies a single playing card, the ill-omened ace of spades.

The woman and the singing man each appear in other paintings by the artist, as do the silver box and candlestick - this is ‘selective’ naturalism, a scene composed from the imagination with ingredients assembled from drawings and studio props. In Dutch paintings of this type music-making is usually suggestive of love, while playing cards may be emblems of improvidence, and dogs and footwarmers can signify base desires. Yet it would be foolhardy to read this subtle painting, with its subdued tonality, as a scene of the demi-monde. We can never know what the relationships of these three figures are, and their thoughts and feelings, so delicately implied, are infinitely ambiguous. That, surely, was the artist’s intention: to evoke imperfectly understood events, tantalising in their suggestion of mutability and transience.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 14 minutes):

George Frideric Handel: Concerto for harp, lute and theorbo in B flat major

An officer set against a dark undefined background, stands on the left, looking down on a young man opposite him, who is seated with his legs apart at a simple low table writing a letter, and leaning forward in deep concentration. In Dutch seventeenth-century art it was usually the women who were represented in the act of writing letters, associated with love and courtship. Terborch depictions of officers writing or receiving letters is without precedent. Earlier scenes with officers and soldiers were set in guardrooms. Dirck Hals, Jan Miense Molenaer, Willem Duyster and Pieter Codde focused on the disruptive characters of soldiers as they drank, gambled, quarrelled and assaulted civilians.

With Pieter de Hooch and Johannes Vermeer, Gerard ter Borch is one of the most outstanding of Dutch genre painters. Their paintings are based on close observation of their contemporaries and their surroundings, and yet elements from everyday life are often combined to suggest a particular mood, create an intriguing situation or point a moral.

Ter Borch, the son of a painter, was born in Zwolle and trained there in the studio of his father and also in the Haarlem workshop of the landscape painter Pieter Molijn. In his youth he travelled widely in Europe - to Germany, Italy, England, France and Spain. By 1654 he had settled in Deventer in his native province of Overijssel, where he achieved great professional success. He also became one of the town’s regent class, serving as a councillor and painting a group portrait of his fellow regents.

In the genre scenes of his early years ter Borch depicted the life of soldiers but after settling in Deventer his paintings often showed elegant interiors in which small groups of figures talk, drink and make music. In this painting ter Borch shows a humbler setting and a mundane subject and yet he treats with the same delicacy and refinement the depiction of the differing textures of fur, hair, wood and felt. As with the painting of the lace-maker by Netscher, the painting gives an almost monumental quality to an everyday situation.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 3 minutes):

Modest Mussorgsky: Flea song

The full-length portraits of the Deventer burgomaster Jan van Duren (1613-1687) and his wife Margaretha van Haexbergen (1614-1676) were painted in Deventer about 1666. In that year the artist himself became a representative of one of Deventer’s eight wards, which placed him in regular contact with the city council. Many of Terborch’s sitters of the 1660s and 1670s were members of Deventer’s political elite.

After Terborch moved to Deventer in 1654, he specialised in portraits that have been described as “small-scale, full-length, stately in appearance, and remarkably spare in setting.” Most of these pictures are considerably smaller than the present pendants.

Terborch painted a significant number of letter readers and writers. Depictions of this sort enjoyed immense popularity during this period. Since letter writing was primarily (though not exclusively) a leisure activity among the well-to-do it is not surprising that paintings of this theme were so prevalent during the decades in which the Dutch economy expanded greatly.

The Curiosity, completed around 1660, features three young women in an ornate interior. One sporting an ermine-trimmed jacket attentively writes a letter as another woman, identifiable as a maid because of her comparatively simple attire, peers inquisitively over her shoulder. To their right stands a young lady of extraordinary beauty and bearing. Her station and propriety are connoted not only by her luxurious garments but also by her long handkerchief. This accouterment functioned chiefly as a fashionable status symbol for upper-class women in the Dutch Republic.

In 1635-36 Terborch was in London where he acquired familiarity with the English court portraiture. During the 1640s he began to make extraordinary small and miniature portraits. One of the most touching is his tiny portrait of Helena van der Schalcke as a Child, which holds his own when hung next to the pictures Hals and Rembrandt made of children.

This painting is euphemistically known as The Gallant Officer. In this mercenary love scene a soldier offers pieces of money to a young lady who is charming in type and dress. Her reaction is not surprise. The stuff painting is particularly excellent, as is the rendering of the facial expressions and the fine draughtsmanship and subtle lighting of the hands; also the still-life on the table. The apparent casualness is the result of careful thought and execution. The appearance of the tip of the woman’s shoe peeking out from under the edge of her satin dress at the tremendous toe of the soldier’s wonderful hip boot is as calculated as the colour harmony of opulent browns, reds, buff, white, and silver.

The full-length portraits of the Deventer burgomaster Jan van Duren (1613-1687) and his wife Margaretha van Haexbergen (1614-1676) were painted in Deventer about 1666. In that year the artist himself became a representative of one of Deventer’s eight wards, which placed him in regular contact with the city council. Many of Terborch’s sitters of the 1660s and 1670s were members of Deventer’s political elite.

After Terborch moved to Deventer in 1654, he specialised in portraits that have been described as “small-scale, full-length, stately in appearance, and remarkably spare in setting.” Most of these pictures are considerably smaller than the present pendants.

This portrait of Moses Terborch, killed in a battle at an early age, was painted by his elder brother and sister, Gerard and Gesina Terborch.

This painting is also known as Hunting for Lice. The models for the painting are probably the stepmother and one of the half-brothers of the artist.

The painting probably contains a moral, as maternal care, orderliness and cleanliness were the ideal qualities of a good housewife. In the seventeenth century, the lice comb stood for both a clean appearance and a pure character.

It is thought to be an early work of the artist.

Low-life domestic scenes are quite unusual for Terborch, who was best known for his elegant interiors and military scenes. The present painting was considered to be a nineteenth-century copy, but after cleaning and technical examination in 2005 it was identified to be a signed original. Terborch was inspired by similar domestic interior scenes by Leiden artists such as Quiringh van Brekelenkam and Gerrit Dou, who also set their figures in larger spaces filled with domestic details.

This painting having the popular title of Parental Admonition (another version in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) was the subject of a charming passage by Goethe. In his “Die Wahlverwandtschaften” Goethe notes the delicacy of attitude of the figures. He remarks how the father quietly and moderately admonishes his daughter who is seen from behind. The woman in black, sipping from a glass, Goethe interprets as the young woman’s mother, who lowers her eyes so as not to be too attentive to the ‘father’s admonition’. This moralizing title, however, is without foundation and not in accordance with Ter Borch’s usual themes.

The authoritative biographer of the artist interprets the picture in the opposite sense, as a brothel scene, assuming that the seated gentleman holds a coin in his right hand, offering it to the girl. In fact, the detail of the coin is not visible. (The coin is omitted in the engraving Goethe knew). In the Berlin version the passage is rubbed; a former owner may have had it painted over because she or he found it an embarrassing allusion. The Amsterdam version does not show the coin either, but its original paint surface is generally abraded; thus it is impossible to tell if it ever included the tell-tale coin.

Ter Borch’s psychology is so delicate that the common scenes he repeatedly painted are raised to the level of highly civilized life. That Goethe’s interpretation was possible at all shows the refinement of Ter Borch’s treatment. Even if he made a mistake, Goethe had the right feeling for the way Ter Borch treated his subjects. Psychologically and pictorially he retains a sensitive touch and delicacy. The young woman is seen from behind; thus her face is averted. The only flesh visible is her neck, which is modelled with tender, silvery grey shadows. We have, however, opportunity to admire the silver-grey satin and black velvet of her gown.

Ter Borch’s minuteness and nicety of handling concentrate largely on painting stuffs. Contrary to Vermeer’s paintings, the dim light and the subdued chiaroscuro do not allow a forceful grasp of the whole field of vision. The light comes mostly from the front and stops at the glossy surfaces of the costumes and other textures.

This painting having the popular title of Parental Admonition (another version in the Staatliche Museen, Berlin) was the subject of a charming passage by Goethe. In his “Die Wahlverwandtschaften” Goethe notes the delicacy of attitude of the figures. He remarks how the father quietly and moderately admonishes his daughter who is seen from behind. The woman in black, sipping from a glass, Goethe interprets as the young woman’s mother, who lowers her eyes so as not to be too attentive to the ‘father’s admonition’. This moralizing title, however, is without foundation and not in accordance with Ter Borch’s usual themes.

The authoritative biographer of the artist interprets the picture in the opposite sense, as a brothel scene, assuming that the seated gentleman holds a coin in his right hand, offering it to the girl. In fact, the detail of the coin is not visible. (The coin is omitted in the engraving Goethe knew). In the Berlin version the passage is rubbed; a former owner may have had it painted over because she or he found it an embarrassing allusion. The Amsterdam version does not show the coin either, but its original paint surface is generally abraded; thus it is impossible to tell if it ever included the tell-tale coin.

Ter Borch’s psychology is so delicate that the common scenes he repeatedly painted are raised to the level of highly civilized life. That Goethe’s interpretation was possible at all shows the refinement of Ter Borch’s treatment. Even if he made a mistake, Goethe had the right feeling for the way Ter Borch treated his subjects. Psychologically and pictorially he retains a sensitive touch and delicacy. The young woman is seen from behind; thus her face is averted. The only flesh visible is her neck, which is modelled with tender, silvery grey shadows. We have, however, opportunity to admire the silver-grey satin and black velvet of her gown.

Ter Borch’s minuteness and nicety of handling concentrate largely on painting stuffs. Contrary to Vermeer’s paintings, the dim light and the subdued chiaroscuro do not allow a forceful grasp of the whole field of vision. The light comes mostly from the front and stops at the glossy surfaces of the costumes and other textures.

Terborch was unrivalled in exploiting the sheen of satin to lend lustre to his painting, and he used it time and again.

In the 1640s Terborch developed a type of small full-length portrait with a neutral background and often returned to it in his late period when depicting wealthy burgers. This model’s magnificent dress enabled the artist to demonstrate his virtuoso skill in conveying fabrics while the subtle colour scheme recalls the finest examples of English miniature portraiture and the gala pictures of van Dyck, with which he had become acquainted in London.

In 1654, Gerard Terborch moved to Deventer, where he created a market for his portraits among the upper class, with which he was associated both through his family and through political connections. The Marienburg family belonged to Deventer’s ruling class. Willem Marienburg I and his son Willem II each held the office of burgomaster for a time. In the 1660s Terborch was commissioned to portray both generations with their respective wives as two pendant pairs. The oval portraits of Willem I (1590-1648) and his wife Geertruida Assink (1602-1679) are now in the Staatliche Museen, Berlin, while the portraits of Willem II (1634-1711) and his wife (and niece) Geertruid Marienburg (1645-1722) are in Prague.

The pendants of Willem II and his wife exhibit the typical features of Terborch’s elegant portrait style, which he cultivated in the 1660s, and which set his work apart from the established portrait types otherwise prevalent in the Netherlands.

In 1654, Gerard Terborch moved to Deventer, where he created a market for his portraits among the upper class, with which he was associated both through his family and through political connections. The Marienburg family belonged to Deventer’s ruling class. Willem Marienburg I and his son Willem II each held the office of burgomaster for a time. In the 1660s Terborch was commissioned to portray both generations with their respective wives as two pendant pairs. The oval portraits of Willem I (1590-1648) and his wife Geertruida Assink (1602-1679) are now in the Staatliche Museen, Berlin, while the portraits of Willem II (1634-1711) and his wife (and niece) Geertruid Marienburg (1645-1722) are in Prague.

The pendants of Willem II and his wife exhibit the typical features of Terborch’s elegant portrait style, which he cultivated in the 1660s, and which set his work apart from the established portrait types otherwise prevalent in the Netherl ands.

Terborch, a refined painter of domestic scenes, was also a reasonably successful portraitist. His portraits have the same character as his genre paintings. They include incidental details and portray their subjects within domestic interiors.

The unknown sitter sits in front of a small table covered by a deep red cloth. The background is olive green, a hat resting on the table, like in several other single male portraits by the painter. The unidentified patron was presumably one of the artist’s numerous clients in and around Deventer.

The model for this painting was the artist’s sister Gesina.

The singer is accompanying herself by playing the theorbo.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 14 minutes):

George Frideric Handel: Concerto for harp, lute and theorbo in B flat major

Ter Borch’s fame rests mainly upon the genre pictures he made after the middle of the 17th century which help define the subjects and pictorial schemes used by many artists of his generation and those who worked later. What sets him apart is his mastery of subtle narration which can charge every episode with subdued tension.

In contrast to Pieter de Hooch, Ter Borch maintains his fine taste and craftsmanship in his genre pieces until the very end. His contact with Vermeer in Delft in 1635 may have had an impact on the younger master. Then there conceivably was a shift; some of Ter Borch’s late works seem to show a sign of Vermeer’s influence. The fullness and clarity of the foreground figure playing the cello in the Concert at Berlin and the bright illumination of the room recall the Delft master; but it is also possible that the two artists arrived at similar solutions independently. In any event, the Ter Borch, the exquisite and minute treatment of materials, textures, and stuffs with the most intricate light accents is completely personal. The spatial relationships are not grasped with Vermeer’s sureness, and the composition lacks the Delft painter’s masterly consideration of the surface plane and the adjustment of the spatial accents to the overall design.

It will be noted that the figure playing the harpsichord has no Ter Borch character. Originally this figure represented a man. Ter Borch subsequently transformed the man into a woman, and a whimsical restorer, who worked on the picture at the end of the 19th century because of its bad state of presentation, changed the woman’s gown and gave the model his wife’s features.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 6 minutes):

Fran�ois Couperin: Pieces de clavicen (excerpts)

This is one of an outstanding group of interior scenes with figures painted by ter Borch in Deventer in the years around 1660. He paints young men and women in elegant rooms, talking, dancing, drinking, making music and flirting. In addition to his skill in setting the scene, ter Borch possesses a remarkable technical gift, especially in the description of texture. No Dutch artist rendered satin more effectively than ter Borch nor was able to differentiate better in the medium of oil paint between the textures of a leather jerkin, a gleaming breastplate, a table carpet, a wooden lute and a brass candelabra.

In 1658 ter Borch was in Delft where he witnessed a document with the young Vermeer. This recently discovered evidence of a direct contact between the two artists confirms what has long been suggested: that the simplicity and restraint of ter Borch’s style exercised an important influence on the Delft painter.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 4 minutes):

Gioacchino Rossini: La Danza

The young woman depicted in the painting is Gesina Ter Borch, the artist’s sister, while the young man is his brother Moses.

The young man in painting is a likeness of the artist’s brother Moses.

Terborch’s Knifegrinder’s Family is atypical. The painter’s approach gives the subject - labour and poverty - the spiritual intensity of a parable.

The painting is signed on the spine of the book on the table: Gt. Borg FCT.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 2 minutes):

Francesco da Milano: Tre fantasie for lute

The young woman in this picture seems engrossed in her lute-playing; bending forward a little, she seems to be concentrating on the sheet music on the table as she plucks the strings of her instrument. The generously laid-out outline of the figure, overlapped by nothing, dominates the picture, giving it peace and harmony. The surrounding space, on the other hand, retreats into the darkness of the background, becoming both setting and foil, and establishing a relationship of tension with the central motif. On the wall, a map can just be made out.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 2 minutes):

Francesco da Milano: Tre fantasie for lute

Terborch worked in various Dutch cities and traveled to England, Italy, and Spain, enriching his work with impressions and influences. In the domestic genre scenes of the 1650s and 1660s that form the best part of his legacy, there is no pronounced moralising. On the contrary, the characters, who are often shown in profile or from behind, are engaged in a silent dialogue of looks that allows us only to guess at the meaning of the event.

The independence of the Netherlands was recognised by the Treaty of Munster which was signed between the Dutch and the Spanish in 1648. The treaty, result of long negotiation put an end to the Eighty Years’ War on the 18th of June, 1648. The ratification took place in the council chamber of M�nster town hall. Gerard Terborch was present and he commemorated the event by this painting.

This is one of Terborch’s many paintings that illustrate the theme of courtship. In a darkened interior embellished with gilt leather walls and an ornate marble and carved wooden fireplace, a group of fashionably dressed youth are gathered. The features of the man entering at the left, the suitor, are reputedly those of Terborch’s talented pupil Caspar Netscher.

The picture represents the artists’s cousin Hartogh van Moerkerken (1622-1694), his first wife Sibilla Nijkerken (1625-1665), and their son Philippus (1652-1688). The watch held by the head of the family can be interpreted as a vanitas motif (a reminder of mortality) or as a symbol of temperance.

Formerly the painting was attributed to Gabriel Metsu.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 2 minutes):

Francesco da Milano: Tre fantasie for lute

By the late 1650s, Terborch had been arranging three-quarter-length figures around tables, in compositions of similar format, for about ten years. The present painting belongs to this group. The figure of the theorbo player recalls the young woman in blue who plays alone at a table in The Suitor’s Visit of about 1658.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 14 minutes):

George Frideric Handel: Concerto for harp, lute and theorbo in B flat major

The figure of the theorbo player recalls the young woman in blue who plays alone at a table in The Suitor’s Visit of about 1658.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 14 minutes):

George Frideric Handel: Concerto for harp, lute and theorbo in B flat major

Ter Borch frequently represented elegantly dressed men and women writing or reading letters, often, as here, in the company of servants, family members, or friends quietly awaiting the reader’s reactions. Well-to-do burghers relished the aristocratic social ritual of the love letter.

The standing woman, dressed in blue and yellow and fully illuminated, is the protagonist. The models who posed for this painting were probably members of the Terborch family. The woman reading the letter strongly resembles Terborch’s drawings of his sister Gesina. The boy was probably his brother Mozes. The dog lying on the stool in the foreground must have been Terborch’s own dog, since it figures frequently in his works.

At Deventer, Ter Borch developed an independent form of genre which in the meticulousness of its execution seems to be close to the Leiden variant. In connection with his remarkable talent for sensitive rendering of the texture of different fabrics, which in all of his mature paintings constitutes a major pictorial motive, Ter Borch showed a preference for subjects associated with Vanity or Luxury. This preference must have a partially aesthetic background, for these subjects allowed him to paint elegant interiors and richly dressed ladies, as in this picture.

The scene seems almost a snapshot of a moment from everyday life. Genre paintings depicting stylishly dressed people in an interior were a speciality of Ter Borch’s.

This painting is the first known example by Terborch that presents full-length figures in a well-appointed domestic interior, thereby anticipating many compositions by him and by artists such as Frans van Mieris, Gabriel Metsu, and Johannes Vermeer in which the same or a similar theme is addressed.

The specific subject of a woman admiring or adorning herself in front of a mirror may be traced back in Netherlandish art at least two centuries, for instance in the scene labeled “Superbia” (Pride) in Hieronymus Bosch’s Seven Deadly Sins. The theme flourished in sixteenth-century art, and became one of the most common vanitas images in Dutch and Flemish art of the 1600s.