Musical Companyca. 1642–44

Gerard ter Borch the Younger(Zwolle 1617 – 1681 Deventer)oil on panel
33 x 41.2 cm
signed in dark paint, lower right corner, alongstool: “GTBorch” (“T” and “G” in monogram)
GB-105Currently on view at: The National Museum ofChina, Beijing

How To Cite
Surh, Dominique. "Musical Company." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock
Jr. New York, 2017.
https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/.
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© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Musical Company
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Situated within a middle-class domestic interior, a trio of musicians is

Comparative Figures

engaged in an 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 plays a viola dagamba, 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, thewoolen bedcovers tossed casually over the bench, and the scraps ofpaper and broken pipe on the floor—indicate that this is a common setting
for a wide range of domestic pastimes and amusements.

Fig 1. Gerard ter Borch, Woman
at Her Dressing Table, ca.
1648–49, oil on circular panel, 20cm diameter, formerly private
collection, FranceIn Musical Company, an important transitional work within Gerard ter
Borch the 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 seated figure at the virginals after his younger halfsister Gesina (1631–90), who was a frequent model in his paintings.
Gesina’s distinctive profile and unconventional beauty appear in as manyas twenty paintings throughout Ter Borch’s career.[2] Here he has
portrayed her at the tender age of about twelve or thirteen. AlthoughFig 2. Infrared reflectogram of A
Musical Company (GB-105)

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 painting, the present work predates it byseveral years and represents the fair-haired half-sister’s pictorial debut.
The hypothesis that Ter Borch painted this scene directly from life issupported by the existence of a black-chalk underdrawing (fig 2). The
character of the simple, free-flowing lines and abbreviated figures, whichcorrespond 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 theoriginal 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 andFig 3. Gerard ter Borch, The
Suitor’s Visit, c. 1658, oil oncanvas, 80 x 75 cm, National
Gallery of Art, Washington,
Andrew W. Mellon Collection

canopy bed in the background are also faithfully executed, while an extra
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…,” thefirst word of Musica Donum Dei (“Music is the Gift of God”), an inscription
often found on such instruments. On the panel next to the woman’s lap are
the letters “So…,” which almost certainly allude to another frequently found© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Musical Company
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inscription, Soli Deo Gloria (“Glory to God Alone”). The easy rapport of themusicians suggests that they play together on a regular basis and arefamiliar with the music. As was common in such ensembles at that time,they have no written musical notations before them and play from memory,
following each other through visual and audible cues such as the speed ofa 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 entranceof the kitchen maid, who pauses to rest her heavy basket of wood. TerBorch contrasts the higher engagement of their musical harmonies withFig 4. Gerard ter Borch, The
Music Party, ca. 1675, oil on oakpanel, 58.1 x 47.3 cm, Cincinnati
Art Museum, Bequest of Mary M.
Emery, inv. no. 1927.421

the implicit clatter of her menial household task. To this end, he uses
dramatic tenebroso lighting, which selectively illuminates the ensemble
while leaving the maid obscured in shadow.
The emotional rapport between the gentleman playing the viola da gamba
and the young woman at the virginals connects the theme of music to thatof love. Ter Borch guides our attention to their elusive psychologicalexchange by means of a vibrant red tablecloth and light reflections thatsweep across the folds of the girl’s satin dress and over the smoothsurface of the viola da gamba. The girl’s shaded eyes and steady gaze,
directed at the male figure so fully engrossed in his playing, alludes todeeper affections of the heart. Although the theme of music making was awell-established metaphor for love and harmony, Ter Borch imparts anamorous overtone through suggestive nuances rather than through explicit
narrative detail.[6] The decidedly private and introspective mood of thepresent work thus differs radically from the jovial musical companies
popular in Haarlem and Amsterdam that Ter Borch would haveencountered in the work of his older contemporaries, such as Dirck Hals
(1591–1656), Jan Miense Molenaer (c. 1610–68), Pieter Codde(1599–1678), and Anthonie Palamedesz (1601–73). Musical Companyoffers a new direction in this genre and contains the seeds of an idiomatic
approach that Ter Borch would develop subsequently in his fully maturework.[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© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Musical Company
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abroad and before settling in Amsterdam, with trips to Zwolle to visit hisfamily.[8] The work bears considerable stylistic resemblance to his Card
Playing Soldiers before an Ancient Ruin in the Staatliche Museen inBerlin, which Gudlaugsson dates to ca. 1643.[9] The painting is close inconception to the artist’s earliest signed and dated work from 1635, 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 to portray the alluring visual effects of fabric—here
foreshadowed in the play of light across the crinkled black satin of theyoung girl’s dress—and his masterful depictions of genteel encounters
between the sexes. The theme of love and attraction under the guise ofmusic would become an enduring favorite. As demonstrated in works suchas The Suitor’s Visit in Washington (fig 3), from ca. 1658, and The Music
Party in Cincinnati, from ca. 1668/70 (fig 4), Ter Borch would continue toexplore the social rituals and power dynamics of courtship while treating
the engagement of music with nuanced psychological inflection.

-Dominique Surh© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Musical CompanyPage 5 of 7Endnotes
1. Edward Kottlick, A History of the Harpsichord (Bloomington, 2003), 127ff. On the theme ofmusic and love, see The Hoogsteder Exhibition of Music and Painting in the Golden Age(Exh. cat. The Hague, Kunsthandel Hoogsteder & Hoogsteder; Antwerp, Hessenhuis)(Zwolle, 1994), 43ff, 125.
2. Allison McNeil Kettering, “Ter Borch’s Ladies in Satin,” Art History 16 (1993): 95–124, also
published in W. 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) (New Haven and London, 2004), 84, under
no. 17, fig. 1; see also Walter Liedtke, Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art , 2vols. (New York, 2007), 1:63, 64, n. 7.
4. A similar underdrawing, visible especially in the head of the female figure, was found throughinfrared reflectography in another of the artist’s music-making scenes from ca. 1668: AWoman Playing the Theorbo-Lute and a Cavalier, in New York. See Walter Liedtke, DutchPaintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2 vols. (New York, 2007), 1:70–74.
5. See E. Kottlick, A History of the Harpsichord (Bloomington, 2003), 127ff; P. Fischer, Musicin 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 DutchPainting,” in The Hoogsteder Exhibition of Music and Painting in the Golden Age (Exh. cat.
The Hague, Kunsthandel Hoogsteder & Hoogsteder; Antwerp, Hessenhuis) (Zwolle, 1994),
41ff; A. P. Mirimonde, “Les sujets musicaux chez Vermeer de Delft,”Gazette des BeauxArts 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 PieterCodde, 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, “Dancing Party,” in The Hoogsteder
Exhibition of Music and Painting in the Golden Age (Exh. cat. The Hague, Kunsthandel
Hoogsteder & Hoogsteder; Antwerp, Hessenhuis) (Zwolle, 1994), 174–77, no. 12.
8. Sturla J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert ter Borch, 2 vols. (The Hague, 1959–60), 2:257, no. C85,
catalogued the painting as a lost work known only through documents, until it came to light in1987 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.
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Musical Company
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10. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., ed., Gerard ter Borch (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Galleryof Art; Detroit Institute of Arts) (New Haven and London, 2004), 47–49, no. 2.

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 bydescent (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 theAge of Vermeer,” 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,” 15January–21 August 2016 [lent by the present owner].
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The
Leiden Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].

References
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent
Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith . 8 vols.
London, 1907–27. Translated from Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke
der hervorragendsten höllandischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts . 10 vols. Esslingen andParis, 1907–28, 5:55–56, no. 151.
Gudlaugsson, Sturla J. Katalog der Gemälde Gerard ter Borchs. 2 vols. The Hague,© 2017 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

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1959–60, 2:257, no. C 85.
Surh, Dominique N. “A Musical Company.” In Human Communication in the Age ofVermeer. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Danielle H. A. C. Lokin. Exh. cat. Kyoto
Municipal Museum of Art; Tokyo, Bunkamura Museum of Art. London, 2011, 48–50, no. 6.

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 anduncradled panel has bevels along all four sides. There are machine tool marks, two labels, andtwo chalk inscriptions but no wax collection seals, import stamps, stencils or panel maker’smarks along the panel reverse.
A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied. The image was constructed extremely
thinly and smoothly, the thinnest areas are through the central figure’s black skirt, sleeve andface.
The X-radiograph image is extremely thin. Only a few areas of the composition are faintly radioopaque: the cellist’s proper right wrist cuff and proper right lower leg, the highlight along thecello’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 originally stood more vertically, and an underdrawn hat on the bench to her left,
which was not executed in the paint stage.
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 DigneyPeer, paintings conservator, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection