The Music Lesson
Gerard ter Borch the Younger (Dutch, 1617-1681)
c. 1670
View the original$18
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Materials & printing
Archival matte paper, 189 g/m² (10.3 mil), sourced from Japan, printed with multicolor water-based inkjet so every brushstroke stays crisp. Framed prints arrive ready to hang in a .75″ ayous-wood frame with an acrylite front. Sized to standard frames by cropping, never stretching — at most about 3% comes off one edge, which isn’t noticeable on most pieces, and we only offer a size when it stays that small.
Shipping & returns
Made to order and delivered in 5–8 business days (2–4 to print, 3–4 in transit). US shipping only for now. Because each print is made for your order, all sales are final — but if it arrives damaged or defective, send us a photo within 14 days and we’ll replace it free. Full policy.
Why is it this affordable?
A thin, flat margin on every piece — just enough to keep the store running. Most of what you pay is the print itself. We only sell sizes that reproduce at full quality, and we don’t mark up the large sizes the way most shops do.
About this work
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.
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Original size
- 63.6 × 50.4 cm (25 × 19 7/8 in.)
Museum record · 5 owners · 5 exhibitions
Provenance
- Possibly sold Amsterdam, October 1, 1738 for 200 florins.
- Probably Johan Pieter Wierman, Leyden; his sale, Amsterdam, August 18, 1762 to Diemen.
- Probably Jan Jacob Brants (died 1813); sold his sale Pieter Yver, Amsterdam, April 20, 1813, lot 30 for 275 florins to Jer. deVries.
- Possibly John Fairlie, Esq.; possibly his sale, 1830, for 130 gs to Michael Peacock; 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; 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.
Exhibitions
- Detroit Institute of Arts, The Ninth Loan Exhibition: Dutch Genre and Landscape Painting of the Seventeenth Century, October 16–November 10, 1929.
- New York World’s Fair, European Paintings and Sculpture from 1300–1800, May–October 1939.
- City Art Museum of St. Louis, 40 Masterpieces: A Loan Exhibition of Paintings from American Museums, October 6–November 10, 1947.
- Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, June 1–November 1, 1933.
- Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, June 1–November 1, 1934.
