Art Institute of Chicago

The Music Lesson

Gerard ter Borch the Younger (Dutch, 1617-1681)LinkedCulture matchlcp-8e40cf7800aa

Date: c. 1670
Medium: Oil on canvas
Culture: Netherlands
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Institution: Art Institute of Chicago
Object ID: 512

From the Art Institute of Chicago record

In this small-scale scene of everyday life, a woman plays the double-headed lute as her companion marks the tempo. 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. Gerard ter Borch the Younger painted many images like this one, featuring military officers and elegant young women in shimmering satin conversing, making music, or exchanging letters.

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Provenance & credit

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Credit line: Gift of Charles T. Yerkes
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), San Donato; offered for sale Florence, Pillet, Le Roy and Mannheim, March 15-April 10, 1880, no. 1049, bought in; by descent to Princess Demidoff (formerly Princess Lise Troubetzkoi), 1885; sold through Durand-Ruel, Paris, June 1890, as part of a group of Dutch and Flemish paintings, many from the Demidoff collection, with funds advanced by Martin A. Ryerson and other trustees of the Art Institute [annual report 1891]; the cost of 1891.1 was re-imbursed by Charles T. Yerkes.