Musical Company
Gerard ter Borch the Younger(Zwolle 1617 – 1681 Deventer)ca. 1642–44
oil on panel
33 x 41.2 cm
signed in dark paint, lower right corner, alongstool: “GTBorch” (“T” and “G” in monogram)
GB-105© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Musical Company
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How to cite
Surh, Dominique. “Musical Company” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock
Jr. and Lara Yeager-Crasselt. New York, 2020–23. https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/ (archived December2023).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed by apermanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

Situated within a middle-class domestic interior, a trio of musicians is engaged in an

Comparative Figures

intimate recital. The ensemble features a young woman playing the virginals, an early
keyboard instrument known for its sweet, pure tone.[1] She is flanked by two male
instrumentalists: an elegantly dressed young gentleman sits across from her and playsa viola da gamba, while behind the virginals is a slightly older man who looks toward
the others as he actively bows his viola da braccia. The features of theroom—including the fireplace and canopy bed in the background, the woolen
bedcovers tossed casually over the bench, and the scraps of paper and broken pipe on
the floor—indicate that this is a common setting for a wide range of domestic
pastimes and amusements.
In Musical Company, an important transitional work within Gerard ter Borch theFig 1. Gerard ter Borch, Woman at
Her Dressing Table, ca. 1648–49, oilon circular panel, 20 cm diameter,
formerly private collection, France

Younger’s oeuvre, the artist evokes the immediacy of a moment taken from life.
Drawing inspiration from his own family in Zwolle, Ter Borch modeled the seatedfigure at the virginals after his younger half-sister Gesina (1631–90), who was afrequent model in his paintings. Gesina’s distinctive profile and unconventional
beauty appear in as many as twenty paintings throughout Ter Borch’s career.[2] Herehe has portrayed her at the tender age of about twelve or thirteen. Although Woman
at Her Dressing Table, from ca. 1648–49 and formerly in a private collection in Paris(fig 1),[3] is sometimes regarded as Ter Borch’s earliest depiction of Gesina in a genre

Fig 2. Infrared reflectogram of A
Musical Company (GB-105)

painting, the present work predates it by several years and represents the fair-haired
half-sister’s pictorial debut.
The hypothesis that Ter Borch painted this scene directly from life is supported by
the existence of a black-chalk underdrawing (fig 2). The character of the simple, free© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Musical CompanyPage 3 of 8flowing lines and abbreviated figures, which correspond so closely with the final
painting, suggests it was made quickly on the spot as an initial sketch.[4] Ter Borch
diverged only slightly from the original drawing in the final position of Gesina’s
profile and of the violinist’s hat, and in the leaning angle of the kitchen maid’s pose.
The fireplace and canopy bed in the background are also faithfully executed, while anextra hat, omitted in the final work, can be spotted on the bench next to the bed.
Visible on the inside of the virginals’ lid is the inscription “Musica…,” the first wordof Musica Donum Dei (“Music is the Gift of God”), an inscription often found onsuch instruments. On the panel next to the woman’s lap are the letters “So…,” whichalmost certainly allude to another frequently found inscription, Soli Deo Gloria(“Glory to God Alone”). The easy rapport of the musicians suggests that they play

Fig 3. Gerard ter Borch, The Suitor’s
Visit, c. 1658, oil on canvas, 80 x 75
cm, National Gallery of Art,
Washington, Andrew W. MellonCollection

together on a regular basis and are familiar with the music. As was common in such
ensembles at that time, they have no written musical notations before them and playfrom memory, following each other through visual and audible cues such as the speedof a bow or the intake of breath. Ter Borch explicitly conveys the auditory qualities
of music by portraying the viola da gamba player pulling his bow on an intoned string
while the woman rolls out a full chord on the virginal, parting her lips as if to allude
to the sound of a vocal melody.
The players are fully absorbed in their music and oblivious to the entrance of thekitchen maid, who pauses to rest her heavy basket of wood. Ter Borch contrasts thehigher engagement of their musical harmonies with the implicit clatter of her menialhousehold task. To this end, he uses dramatic tenebroso lighting, which selectivelyilluminates the ensemble while leaving the maid obscured in shadow.
The emotional rapport between the gentleman playing the viola da gamba and theFig 4. Gerard ter Borch, The MusicParty, ca. 1675, oil on oak panel, 58.1
x 47.3 cm, Cincinnati Art Museum,Bequest of Mary M. Emery, inv. no.
1927.421

young woman at the virginals connects the theme of music to that of love. Ter Borch
guides our attention to their elusive psychological exchange by means of a vibrant red
tablecloth and light reflections that sweep across the folds of the girl’s satin dress andover the smooth surface of the viola da gamba. The girl’s shaded eyes and steadygaze, directed at the male figure so fully engrossed in his playing, alludes to deeper
affections of the heart. Although the theme of music making was a well-establishedmetaphor for love and harmony, Ter Borch imparts an amorous overtone throughsuggestive nuances rather than through explicit narrative detail.[6] The decidedly
private and introspective mood of the present work thus differs radically from thejovial musical companies popular in Haarlem and Amsterdam that Ter Borch would
have encountered in the work of his older contemporaries, such as Dirck Hals
(1591–1656), Jan Miense Molenaer (c. 1610–68), Pieter Codde (1599–1678), andAnthonie Palamedesz (1601–73). Musical Company offers a new direction in thisgenre and contains the seeds of an idiomatic approach that Ter Borch would develop© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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subsequently in his fully mature work.[7]Musical Company likely dates to about 1642–44, relatively early in Ter Borch’s
career. He probably painted it after returning from his voyages abroad and before
settling in Amsterdam, with trips to Zwolle to visit his family.[8] The work bears
considerable stylistic resemblance to his Card Playing Soldiers before an Ancient Ruinin the Staatliche Museen in Berlin, which Gudlaugsson dates to ca. 1643.[9] The
painting is close in conception to the artist’s earliest signed and dated work from1635, also in Berlin, The Consultation, particularly in the dramatic use of light andcarefully executed reflections.[10]The painting introduces a number of features that would become hallmarks of Ter
Borch’s mature style of the 1650s and 1660s, including his extraordinary ability toportray the alluring visual effects of fabric—here foreshadowed in the play of light
across the crinkled black satin of the young girl’s dress—and his masterful depictionsof genteel encounters between the sexes. The theme of love and attraction under theguise of music would become an enduring favorite. As demonstrated in works such as
The Suitor’s Visit in Washington (fig 3), from ca. 1658, and The Music Party inCincinnati, from ca. 1668/70 (fig 4), Ter Borch would continue to explore the social
rituals and power dynamics of courtship while treating the engagement of music withnuanced psychological inflection.

- Dominique Surh, 2017

© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Musical CompanyPage 5 of 8Endnotes
1. Edward Kottlick, A History of the Harpsichord (Bloomington, 2003), 127ff. On the theme of music andlove, see The Hoogsteder Exhibition of Music and Painting in the Golden Age (Exh. cat. The Hague,Kunsthandel Hoogsteder & Hoogsteder; Antwerp, Hessenhuis Museum) (Zwolle, 1994), 43ff, 125.
2. Allison McNeil Kettering, “Ter Borch’s Ladies in Satin,” Art History 16 (1993): 95–124, also publishedin Wayne Franits, Looking at Seventeenth Century Dutch Art, Realism Reconsidered (Cambridge, 1997),
98–115, 222–28; Allison McNeil Kettering, Drawings from the Ter Borch Studio Estate, 2 vols.
(Amsterdam, 1988).
3. Illustrated in Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., ed., Gerard ter Borch (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National
Gallery of Art; Detroit Institute of Arts) (Zwolle, 2004), 84, under no. 17, fig. 1; see also Walter
Liedtke, Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2 vols. (New York, 2007), 1:63, 64, n. 7.
4. A similar underdrawing, visible especially in the head of the female figure, was found through infrared
reflectography in another of the artist’s music-making scenes from ca. 1668: A Woman Playing theTheorbo-Lute and a Cavalier, in New York. See Walter Liedtke, Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, 2 vols. (New York, 2007), 1: 70–74.
5. See Edrward Kottlick, A History of the Harpsichord (Bloomington, 2003), 127ff; Peter Fischer, Music in
Painting of the Low Countries in the 16th and 17th Centuries (Amsterdam, 1972), 61ff.
6. On the theme of music and love, see Madga Kyrova, “Music in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting,” in
The Hoogsteder Exhibition of Music and Painting in the Golden Age (Exh. cat. The Hague, Kunsthandel
Hoogsteder & Hoogsteder; Antwerp, Hessenhuis Museum) (Zwolle, 1994), 41ff; A. P. Mirimonde, “Lessujets musicaux chez Vermeer de Delft,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 57 (1961): 29–52.
7. See, for example, works such as Anthonie Palamedesz, Party Scene with Music, mid-1630s, oil on panel,
63 x 89 cm, Wallraf Richartz Museum, Cologne, no. 1058; or Pieter Codde, Cavaliers and Ladies, 1633,
oil on panel, 54 x 68 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. SK-A-4844; and, also by Codde, Dancing
Party, 163[9?], oil on panel, 50 x 89 cm, private collection. On the latter, see Edwin Buijsen, “DancingParty,” in The Hoogsteder Exhibition of Music and Painting in the Golden Age (Exh. cat. The Hague,Kunsthandel Hoogsteder & Hoogsteder; Antwerp, Hessenhuis Museum) (Zwolle, 1994), 174–77, no. 12.
8. Sturla J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert ter Borch, 2 vols. (The Hague, 1959–60), 2:257, no. C85, catalogued thepainting as a lost work known only through documents, until it came to light in 1987 at public auction.
Allison McNeil Kettering dates the painting to ca. 1642–44, while Otto Naumann suggests a slightly
earlier date (see correspondence, on file).
9. Sturla J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert ter Borch, 2 vols. (The Hague, 1959–60), 2:257, no. 25.
10. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., ed., Gerard ter Borch (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art;
Detroit Institute of Arts) (New Haven and London, 2004), 47–49, no. 2.
© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Provenance
C. E. E. Baron Collot d’Escury (his sale, Leeuwarden, 17 October 1831, no. 4).
Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (1803–90), Margam Castle, Port Talbot, Wales; and by descent(Sotheby’s, London, 10 December 1986, no. 65).
Saul Steinberg (1939–2012), New York [Richard L. Feigen, New York, by 2002 until 2006].
From whom acquired by the present owner.

Exhibition History
Bartlesville, Oklahoma, The Price Tower Arts Center, “Music’s Power: Great European Paintings on
Musical Themes,” 28 May–10 July 2002, no. 2 [lent by Richard L. Feigen].
Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, “Communication: Visualizing the Human Connection in the Age ofVermeer,” 25 June–16 October 2011; Miyagi Museum of Art, 27 October–12 December 2011; Tokyo,Bunkamura Museum of Art, 23 December 2011–14 March 2012, no. 6 [lent by the present owner].
Dallas Museum of Art, “Vermeer Suite: Music in 17th-Century Dutch Paintings,” 15 January–21 August
2016 [lent by the present owner].
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The LeidenCollection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].
Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection,” 23 September 2017–25 February 2018 [lent by the presentowner].
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpiecesof The Leiden Collection,” 28 March 2018–22 July 2018 [lent by the present owner].
St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces ofThe Leiden Collection,” 5 September 2018–13 January 2019 [lent by the present owner].
Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces fromThe Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre,” 14 February–18 May 2019 [lent by the presentowner].

References
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith. Edited and translated by Edward G. Hawke, 5:55–56, no. 151. 8 vols. London, 1907–28. Originally published as Beschreibendes und kritischesVerzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten höllandischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts. 10 vols.
Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28.
Gudlaugsson, Sturla J. Katalog der Gemälde Gerard ter Borchs sowie biographisches Material. 2 vols. TheHague, 1959–60, 2: 257, no. C 85.
Surh, Dominique N. “A Musical Company.” In Human Connections in the Age of Vermeer. Edited byArthur K. Wheelock, Jr. and Danielle H.A.C. Lokin, 48-50, no. 6. Exh. cat. Kyoto, Kyoto Municipal
Museum of Art; Tokyo, Bunkamura Museum of Art. London, 2011.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Musical Company.” In Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The LeidenCollection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 128–29; 185, no. 54. Translated by Li Ying. Exh. cat.
Beijing, National Museum of China. Beijing, 2017.
Wang, Jia. “Dutch Painting in Golden Age.” In Journal of National Museum of China 169, no. 8 (2017):
38.
Long Museum, West Bund. Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age: Masterpieces fromThe Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund. Shanghai, 2017, 142–43.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Musical Company.” In The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces of TheLeiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 210–11; 247, no. 72. Translated by Daria Babich andDaria Kuzina. Exh. cat. Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts; St. Petersburg, The State
Hermitage Museum. Moscow, 2018.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “The Leiden Collection and the Dutch Golden Age.” In Rembrandt, Vermeer andthe Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Edited byBlaise Ducos and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 30. Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019.
[Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]
Blanc, Jan. “Being Modern, Being Dutch: The Seventeenth-Century Invention of the Golden Age.” In
Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Muséedu Louvre. Edited by Blaise Ducos and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 42. Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu
Dhabi. London, 2019. [Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]
Ducos, Blaise, and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, eds. Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age.
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu
Dhabi. London, 2019, 164–5, no. 83. [Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]

Technical Summary
The support, a single plank of horizontally grained, rectangular, wedge-shaped Baltic oak derived from a tree
felled after 1630, has an earliest use date of 1638.[1] The unthinned and uncradled panel has bevels along all© 2024 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

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four sides. There are machine tool marks, two labels, and two chalk inscriptions but no wax collection seals,
import stamps, stencils or panel maker’s marks along the panel reverse.
A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied. The image was constructed extremely thinly andsmoothly, the thinnest areas are through the central figure’s black skirt, sleeve and face.
The X-radiograph image is extremely thin. Only a few areas of the composition are faintly radio-opaque: thecellist’s proper right wrist cuff and proper right lower leg, the highlight along the cello’s proper right edge,
and the central figure’s white, triangular shawl. Neither the faces nor the white shirt collars of the remaining
figures are visible.
Infrared images captured at 780–1700 nanometers reveal a detailed, sketchy line underdrawing throughout
the composition.[2] The images also reveal a compositional change to the maid along the right, who originallystood more vertically, and an underdrawn hat on the bench to her left, which was not executed in the paintstage.
The painting is signed in dark paint along the lower right corner along the stool but is not dated. It is
inscribed in dark paint along the lid and front panel of the virginals.
The painting was cleaned and restored in 2005 and is in a good state of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The characterization of the wood is based on Peter Klein’s 2008 dendrochronology report.
2. Longer wavelength infrared images captured with an InGaAs camera by Shawn Digney-Peer, paintings
conservator, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection