The Music Lesson
Gerard ter Borch
1665–1675
- 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.)
- Genre
- painting
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago
Styles
Tags
paintingpaintChicago World's FairscanvasCentury of Progressoil on canvasdoghomesmenoil paint (paint)painting (image making)17th Centurypainting techniquesMusicfigureswomenworld's fairsinterioroil paintingeuropean paintinginstruments
About
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.
