(Zwolle 1617 – 1681 Deventer)

Gerard ter Borch the Younger

How to citeBakker, Piet. “Gerard ter Borch the Younger” (2017). Revised by Piet Bakker (2020). In The Leiden
Collection

Catalogue,2nded.

EditedbyArthurK.

WheelockJr.

NewYork,

2017–20.

https://theleidencollection.com/artists/gerard-ter-borch-the-younger/ (archived June 2020).
A PDF of every version of this biography is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive ismanaged by a permanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrativeoccurs.

Gerard ter Borch the Younger was born in Zwolle in 1617. His parents were the draftsman Gerard ter Borch
the Elder (1582/83–1662) and Anna Bufkens (1587–1621).[1] Before marrying, Gerard the Elder sojourned inItaly, chiefly in Rome and Naples, from 1600 to 1607. Testifying to his trip are drawings he made of ancientruins in the style of Paul Bril (1553/54–1626). In 1621, after Ter Borch’s mother died, his father took a second
wife, Geesken van Voerst (1599–1628), whose brother was the well-known engraver Robert van Voerst(1597–1636). Soon thereafter Gerard the Elder was awarded the lucrative office of license-master. He did notgive up drawing entirely, however, as is evidenced by his contribution to a songbook, on which the Haarlem
painter Pieter van Laer (1599–1642) also worked.[2] In 1628, Gerard the Elder, by then a widower again, tooka third wife, Wiesken Matthys (1607–83) from Deventer; the couple had three children: Gesina (1631–90),
Harmen (1638–77), and Moses (1645–67) who, like their half-brother, inherited their father’s artistic talent.
Gerard the Younger received his first artistic instruction from his father in Zwolle. In 1632, at the age of fifteen,
he was already in Amsterdam, although it is not known with whom he lodged.[3] In 1634, he moved to Haarlem
to study under the renowned landscape painter Pieter Molyn (1600–61). He completed his training thefollowing year, whereupon he joined the Haarlem Guild of Saint Luke. His stay in Haarlem did not last long,for—as emerges from a letter his father wrote him—Ter Borch was in London in the summer of 1635.[4] Theyounger Ter Borch lived with his step-uncle Robert van Voerst, who shortly before had been appointed asengraver to Charles I (1600–49).[5] His stay in London was brief, however; presumably after a quick stopoverin Antwerp, he was back in Zwolle in the spring of 1636, where he seems to have wanted to settle down for an
extended period.[6]Despite those intentions, Ter Borch was soon once again traveling beyond the borders of the Dutch Republic.
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Gerard ter Borch the Younger
Page 2 of 7Houbraken noted correctly that from the moment that “[Ter Borch] could stand on his own two feet, he wasconsumed with wanderlust and visited foreign countries.”[7] It is highly unlikely that Ter Borch went to Italy as
his father did, and all of the arguments put forward in support of such a journey ultimately prove untenable.[8]Stronger indications exist for a sojourn in Spain. A line in a poem occasioned by Ter Borch’s marriage
suggests that his work was esteemed at the court in Madrid and that the king himself sat for the artist.[9]Although this portrait is no longer extant, an autograph replica seems to confirm this account. Alongside thesmall portrait of the Spanish king, the influence of Diego Velázquez (1599–1660) on Ter Borch’s work also
points to a stay in Madrid. Whether the two ever actually met is unknown, but several portraits Ter Borch
painted shortly after he returned to the Republic suggest that he had seen Velázquez’s work.[10] That his stayat the Spanish court should be dated to the end of the 1630s and not, as Houbraken supposes, after thesigning of the Peace of Münster in 1648, is confirmed by the (at the time) fashionable costume worn by Philip
IV (1605–65) in Ter Borch’s replica.[11]It is not known how long Ter Borch stayed in Spain, but he was certainly back in the Republic around 1640,
although in which city is difficult to determine. Several collaborative works with his teacher Pieter Molyn
suggest that he had settled in Haarlem. Portraits of a few Amsterdam regents, however, point to Amsterdam,
as do his guardroom scenes in the manner of Pieter Codde (1599–1678) and Willem Duyster (1598/99–1635)
from the same time.[12] It was probably thanks to Ter Borch’s Amsterdam connections that he was invited tojoin the Dutch delegation brokering the peace treaty with Spain in Münster as of 1645. There, he becameacquainted with Gaspar de Bracamonte y Guzman (ca. 1595–1676), Count of Peñeranda, and leader of theSpanish delegation, who sat for Ter Borch, a commission he doubtless owed to his earlier experience inSpain.[13] According to Houbraken, “This portrait, to which he applied exceptional diligence and which wasalso well done, gave him not only the opportunity to paint for the count, but also for all of the ambassadors
who had gathered at the peace negotiations.”[14] Among the ambassadors must also be counted the Dutch
negotiators, as Ter Borch portrayed Adriaen Pauw (1585–1653), Adriaan Clant van Stedum (1599–1665), andGodard van Reede (1588–1648) as well.[15]After the treaty was signed, Ter Borch returned to the Republic, stopping in Brussels, where he received agold chain with a metal bearing an image of the Spanish kings.[16] Once again, it is difficult to determine justwhere he settled, although it may have been in Zwolle. If so, he nevertheless traveled regularly from there. Forinstance, Ter Borch’s equestrian portrait of Elector Palatine Charles Louis (1617–80)[17] was executed in The
Hague in 1649. In 1650, he was paid one hundred guilders for twenty-three prints by the town council ofKampen.[18] Three years later, he surfaced in Delft, where he jointly signed a document with painter Johannes
Vermeer (1632–75).[19] Also originating around this time is Ter Borch’s famous portrait of Jan van Goyen(1596–1656), who sat for him in The Hague. In the first half of the 1650s, Ter Borch painted the likenesses ofWillem Everwijn (1617–73) and his wife in Arnhem.[20] Everwijn was a license-master in Arnhem and thus held
the same post as the artist’s father. Moreover, Everwijn was the brother-in-law of Abraham Tulleken, who wasappointed guardian to Caspar Netscher (ca. 1639–84) after the death of both his parents.[21] The Tullekens
and Everwijns were closely related to the Craeyvanger family, for whom Ter Borch later painted several
portraits together with Netscher, who would become his pupil.[22]© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Page 3 of 7

When Netscher went to study under Ter Borch in the mid-1650s, the latter was living in Deventer, where hehad married his step-aunt Geertruit Matthys (1612–72) in 1654. At least for some time, this seems to havespelled an end to his wanderings, and he was granted partial citizenship the following year. In 1666, he wasappointed a gemeensman, or representative of one of the eight wards, and thus exerted influence on the towncouncil, although he never made it as far as alderman or burgomaster. This new position most certainly
helped him secure the commission for a large group portrait of the entire Deventer town council in 1667.[23] Healso portrayed several Deventer regents.[24] Although Ter Borch had settled in the city, he continued to travelfor portrait commissions. In 1670, for instance, he painted the portraits of the Amsterdam mayor Nicolaes
Pancras (1622–78) and his son Gerbrand (1658–1716).[25] The events of the Rampjaar of 1672 also likely ledto Ter Borch’s temporary move from Deventer to Amsterdam.[26] Between 1673 and 1675, he received multiple
portrait commissions from the Amsterdam regent family De Graeff.[27] During this time, he probably stayed withbrother-in-law Sybrant Schellinger (1645–86/90), an Amsterdam merchant and the husband of Gerard’s sister
Jenneke (1640–75). Not long after the occupation forces withdrew from Deventer on 3 May 1674, Ter Borch
had returned to the city. He died in Deventer on 8 December 1681, and at his express request his body wastransferred to Zwolle, so that he could be buried next to his father in the St. Michaelskerk.
Although portraits constitute a substantial share of Ter Borch’s oeuvre, today he is best known as a highly
innovative genre painter. Upon his return from Münster, the guardroom scenes with soldiers at rest or playing
cards in the manner of Codde and Duyster gave way to the tranquil interiors of middle-class dwellings, inwhich he foregrounded ordinary people going about their daily affairs. He was the first Dutch painter todevelop this kind of imagery, which he did entirely independently. After settling in Deventer, he radicallychanged the genre yet again by replacing the average citizens with members of the elite presented in all theirfinery and ostentatious wealth and engaged in activities in keeping with the social mores of their class. TerBorch remained active on the Dutch art market, and works by him can be found in the major cities of theNetherlands. This widespread dissemination of his art explains, in part, the significant influence he exerted onother leading genre painters, such as Gabriel Metsu (1629–67), Pieter de Hooch (1629–84), Frans van Mieris(1635–81), and Vermeer.

- Piet Bakker, 2017; revised in 2020

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Gerard ter Borch the Younger
Page 4 of 7Endnotes
1. Unless otherwise noted, all biographical information on Gerard ter Borch the Younger is takenfrom Sturla J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert ter Borch (The Hague, 1959), vol. 1.
2. See the biography of Pieter van Laer in this catalogue. See also D.P. Snoep, “Een17de eeuws Liedboek met tekeningen van Gerard ter Borch de Oude en Pieter vanLaer,” Simiolus 3 (1968/69): 77–134.
3. From a letter by Gerard the Elder to his son, it can be deduced that the younger Gerard wasin Amsterdam before the summer of 1635. That this took place already in 1632 emerges fromthe study of a head by Ter Borch with the inscription “in Amsterdam 1632.” See Ernst
Wilhelm Moes, “Gerard ter Borch en zijne familie,” Oud Holland 4 (1886): 150; see also note
4.
4. This letter was first published in J.I. van Doorninck, “Het schildersgeslacht terBorch,” in Verzameling van stucken die betrekking hebben tot Overijsselsch Regt enGeschiedenis (1883), 10–11. See also “Letter from Gerard ter Borch the Elder to His Son, 3July 1635,” in Gerard ter Borch, ed. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. (Exh. cat. Washington, D.C.,
National Gallery of Art; Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Zwolle,2004), 187–89.
5. In London, Van Voerst worked closely with Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641), who included
Van Voerst’s portrait in The Iconology. The engraver and his brother, Reinder, succumbed tothe plague before October 1636. This epidemic may have been responsible for Ter Borch’s
sudden departure.
6. This emerges from the purchase, in April and June 1636, of panels from a cabinetmaker andthe inventory of a workshop by “Meyster Gerardt de Schilder” (Master Gerard, the painter).
The goods are all in Deventer, but one of the documents mentions explicitly that they weredispatched to Zwolle. In theory, this painter could also have been the elder Gerard; however,in 1636 he was no longer active as a draftsman and/or painter. J. Lugard Jr., “Gerardt deschilder,” Oud Holland 53 (1936): 136–37. See also Sturla J. Gudlauggson, Geraert ter Borch(The Hague, 1960), 2: 16.
7. “[Ter Borch] op eigen wieken kon dryven, hy reislustig was, en vreemde landen heeftbezocht.” Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en
schilderessen (Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague, 1753; reprint, Amsterdam, 1980),
3: 34.
8. Sturla J. Gudlauggson, Geraert ter Borch (The Hague, 1960), 2: 17. See also Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr., “The Artistic Development of Gerard ter Borch,” in Gerard ter Borch, ed. ArthurK. Wheelock Jr. (Exh. cat. Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art; Detroit, Detroit Institute© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Gerard ter Borch the Younger
Page 5 of 7of Arts; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Zwolle, 2004), 8.
9. This poem was recited by the Zwolle schoolteacher Joost Hermansz Roldanus at the weddingof

Gerardter

BorchandGeertruit

Matthysin

Deventerin1654.

SturlaJ.

Gudlauggson, Geraert ter Borch (The Hague, 1959), 1: 9.
10. For example, see Ter Borch’s portrait of two unknown gentlemen and two unknown ladies,
which he painted around 1640. Sturla J. Gudlauggson, Geraert ter Borch (The Hague,1959–60), 1: 190–93; 2: 61–63, nos. 16–19. See also Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., ed., Gerard terBorch (Exh. cat. Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art; Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts;
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Zwolle, 2004), 9, 53–59, nos. 4–6.
11. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., ed., Gerard ter Borch (Exh. cat. Washington, D.C., National Gallery ofArt; Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Zwolle, 2004), 8–10.
12. For example, his likeness of the famous Amsterdam alderman and burgomaster Jan Six(1618–1700), among others. Sturla J. Gudlauggson, Gerard ter Borch (The Hague, 1959–60),
1: 72; 2: 212, no. 39. For one of Ter Borch’s guardroom scenes, see the entry Guardroom
Interior with Soldiers Smoking and Playing Cards in this catalogue.
13. Sturla J. Gudlauggson, Geraert ter Borch (The Hague, 1959–60), 1: 222; 2: 81, no. 56.
14. “Dit pourtret, waar toe hy inzonderheit zyn vlyt aangewend had, en het geen wel gelukt was,gaf hem niet alleen gelegentheit om nog andere meer voor de Graaf te schilderen, maar ookalle de Ambassadeurs, welke op den Vredehandel byeen gekomen waren.” ArnoldHoubraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen(Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed.,The Hague, 1753; reprint, Amsterdam, 1980), 34.
15. Sturla J. Gudlauggson, Gerard ter Borch (The Hague, 1959–60), 1: 213, 216; 2: 73–74, no.
41, 77–78, nos. 46-47.
16. According to Houbraken, Ter Borch headed to Madrid when the negotiations ended. The
Spanish envoys were so delighted with the portraits that they encouraged Ter Borch to enter
into the service of the Spanish court in Madrid. Houbraken relates that the artist took thisinvitation to heart and as “proof” of Ter Borch’s acceptance, referring to “een gouden keten
met een Medalje, waar op de Beeltenis des Konings, gestempelt was” (a gold chain with a
medal bearing a likeness of the king). Ter Borch did, indeed, own such a chain. He did notreceive it in Madrid, however, but in Brussels, where after the peace had been closed in
Münster he resigned from the Spanish service. See Sturla J. Gudlauggson, Gerard ter Borch(The Hague, 1959), 1: 20.
17. Jan Lievens (1607–74) had portrayed Charles Louis as a child in 1629; see the biographyof Jan Lievens in this catalogue.
18. Sturla J. Gudlauggson, Gerard ter Borch (The Hague, 1959), 1: 20.
19. John Michael Montias, Vermeer and His Milieu: A Web of Social History (Princeton, 1989),
102–4, 308, doc. 251. See also the biography of Johannes Vermeer in this catalogue.
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20. Sturla J. Gudlauggson, Gerard ter Borch (The Hague, 1959–60), 1: 262; 2: 113–14, nos.
103–4.
21. Following Houbraken, Wieseman calls Ter Borch a cousin of Willem Everwijn, though thebasis for this is unknown. Houbraken incorrectly calls him Willem Wynand. Arnold
Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen(Amsterdam, 1718–21; rev. ed., The Hague, 1753; reprint, Amsterdam, 1980), 3: 73; Marjorie
E. Wieseman, Casper Netscher (Doornspijk, 2002), 24.
22. See Ariane van Suchtelen and Menno Potjer, “De Arnhemse familie Craeyvanger—eenbijzondere groep 10 portretten door Paulus Lesire, Gerard ter Borch en Caspar
Netscher,” Oud Holland 127, no. 1 (2014): 7–24. See also the biographies of Caspar
Netscher and Paulus Lesire (1612–1654/56), as well as Portrait of Willem Craeyvanger &Portrait of Christine van der Wart and the portraits of the Craeyvanger Children in thiscatalogue.
23. Sturla J. Gudlauggson, Gerard ter Borch (The Hague, 1959–60), 1: 345; 2: 194–95, no. 205.
24. Alison McNeil Kettering, “Gerard ter Borch’s Portraits for the Deventer Elite,” Simiolus 27(1999): 46–69.
25. Sebastien A.C. Dudok van Heel, “In presentie van de Heer Gerard ter Borgh,” in Essays on
Northern European Art Presented to Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann on His Sixtienth Birthday,ed. Anne-Marie S. Logan (Doornspijk, 1983), 66–67.
26. In the Rampjaar 1672, troops from Cologne and Münster occupied Deventer, and Ter Borch
was part of the faction that under no circumstances wanted to surrender. Nevertheless, when
the city fell that year, Ter Borch had already deserted it. Sebastien A.C. Dudok van Heel, “Inpresentie van de Heer Gerard ter Borgh,” in Essays on Northern European Art Presented toEgbert Haverkamp-Begemann on His Sixtienth Birthday, ed. Anne-Marie S. Logan(Doornspijk, 1983), 70.
27. Sebastien A.C. Dudok van Heel, “In presentie van de Heer Gerard ter Borgh,” in Essays onNorthern European Art Presented to Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann on His Sixtienth Birthday,
ed. Anne-Marie Logan (Doornspijk, 1983), 67–71.

Literature
Houbraken,Arnold.

DegrooteschouburghderNederlantsche

konstschilders

enschilderessen. Amsterdam, 1718–21; revised edition published in The Hague, 1753; reprinted
in Amsterdam, 1980, 3: 34–40.
Moes, Ernst Wilhelm. “Gerard ter Borch en zijne familie.” Oud Holland 4 (1886): 145–65.
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Gerard ter Borch the Younger
Page 7 of 7Houck, Mauritz Ernest. Mededeelingen betreffende Gerhard ter Borch, Robert van Voerst,
Pieter van Anraedt, Aleijda Wolfsen, Derck Hardensteijn en Hendrick ter Bruggen, benevens
aanteekeningen omtrent hunne familieleden. Zwolle, 1899.
Gudlauggson, Sturla J. Geraert ter Borch. 2 vols. The Hague, 1959–60.
Kruimel, Herman Louis. “Rondom de van der Schalcke-portretten van Gerard terBorch.” Jaarboek van het Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie 25 (1971): 224–29.
Van Regteren Altena, I.Q. “The Anonymous Spanish Sitters of Gerard Terborch.” MasterDrawings 10 (1972): 260–63.
Van Dijk, E.A. Schilders in Zwolle. Zwolle, 1993, 4–5.
Kettering, Alison McNeil. “Gerard ter Borch’s Portraits for the Deventer Elite.” Simiolus 27(1999): 46–69.
Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr., ed. Gerard ter Borch. Exh. cat. Washington, D.C., National Galleryof Art; Detroit, The Detroit Institute of Arts; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum. Zwolle, 2004.

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