Gerard ter
Borch
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gerard ter Borch
(or Terburg) (December 1617 in Zwolle – December 8, 1681 in
Deventer), Dutch genre painter, was born in the province of
Overijssel, the Netherlands.
He received an
excellent education from his father, also an artist, and developed
his talent very early. The inscription on a study of a head proves
that Ter Borch was at Amsterdam in 1632, where he studied possibly
under C Duyster or P Codde. Duyster's influence can be traced in a
picture bearing the date 1638, in the lonides Bequest (Victoria and
Albert Museum). In 1634 he studied under Pieter Molyn in Haarlem. A
record of this Haarlem period is the Consultation (1635) at the
Berlin Gallery.
In 1635 he was in
London, and subsequently he travelled in Germany, France, Spain and
Italy. It is certain that he was in Rome in 1641, when he painted
the small portraits on copper of Jan Six and A Young Lady (Six
Collection, Amsterdam). In 1648 he was at Münster during the meeting
of the congress which ratified the treaty of peace between the
Spaniards and the Dutch, and executed his celebrated little picture,
painted upon copper, of the assembled plenipotentiaries--a work
which, along with the Guitar Lesson and a portrait of a Man
Standing, now represents the master in the national collection in
London. The picture was bought by the marquess of Hertford at the
Demidoff sale for 1280, and presented to the National Gallery by Sir
Richard Wallace, at the suggestion of his secretary, Sir John Murray
Scott.
At this time Ter
Borch was invited to visit Madrid, where he received employment and
the honour of knighthood from Philip IV, but, in consequence of an
intrigue, it is said, he was obliged to return to the Netherlands.
He seems to have resided for a time in Haarlem; but he finally
settled in Deventer, where he became a member of the town council,
as which he appears in the portrait now in the gallery of the Hague.
He died at Deventer in 1681.
Ter Borch is
excellent as a portrait painter, but still greater as a painter of
genre subjects. He depicts with admirable truth the life of the
wealthy and cultured classes of his time, and his work is free from
any touch of the grossness which finds so large a place in Dutch
art.[not specific enough to verify. His figures are well drawn and
expressive in attitude; his colouring is clear and rich, but his
best skill lies in his unequalled rendering of texture in draperies,
which is seen to advantage in such pictures as The Letter and in The
Paternal Admonition (also known as The Satin Gown) engraved by
Wille--which exists in various repetitions at Berlin and Amsterdam,
and in the Bridgewater Gallery. Ter Borch's works are comparatively
rare; only about eighty have been catalogued. Six of these are at
the Hermitage, six at the Berlin Museum, five at the Louvre; four at
the Dresden Museum, and two at the Wallace Collection.
See Gerard Terburg
(Ter Borch) et sa famille, by Emile Michel (Paris, 1887); Der
knellerische Entwickelungsgang des C. Ter Borch, by Dr W Bode;
Maîtres d'autre fois, by Eugène Fromentin (4th ed., Paris, 1882).
