Gerard ter Borch, (Dutch, 1617–1681), The Music Party, circa 1670, oil on oak panel, Cincinnati Art Museum, Bequest of Mary M. Emery, 1927.421.

Audio Description

This painting, titled The Music Party, was made around 1670 by the Dutch artist Gerard ter Borch, who lived from 1617 to 1681. It is an oil painting on oak panel and was bequeathed to the Cincinnati Art Museum by Mary M. Emery. Its accession number is 1927.421.

This painting, about two feet in height, shows an interior scene of three young people gathered around a table to play music. Behind them is an open doorway and a framed painting hanging on the wall at right. A woman sits at a table covered with red cloth in profile to the left, reaching out with her right hand to turn the page to a music book on the table. Her left arm supports the neck of a stringed instrument resting in her lap. She wears a yellow satin coat edged with white fur over a white satin skirt. Her brown hair is arranged in a bun decorated with strands of pearls. Small curls frame her face and small bow of black ribbon is tied in her hair above her ear. A young man with long, wavy blond hair reclines on the table with an open song book in his hands. He wears a black coat over a white shirt with a ruff, and a sword at his hip. His gaze has drifted up from the song book to fix on the young woman. Behind him stands another young man wearing a hat and black cloak, who looks over the lounging man’s shoulder at the song book.

Label Copy

This painting, titled The Music Party, was made around 1670 by the Dutch artist Gerard ter Borch, who lived from 1617 to 1681. It is an oil painting on oak panel and was bequeathed to the Cincinnati Art Museum by Mary M. Emery. Its accession number is 1927.421.

Gerard ter Borch was one of the most talented painters of genre scenes in the Netherlands during the seventeenth century. In this painting, an elegantly dressed woman holding a theorbo—a bass lute—points to a book of music as two gentlemen look on. Ter Borch plays on the social and flirtatious connotations of music-making among the three figures. Seventeenth-century viewers would also have appreciated the artist’s ability to imitate nature, as in the shimmering surface of the woman’s white satin skirt.

Seventeenth-century Dutch genre painting was well-represented among the "202." In addition to the two pictures by Ter Borch, there were works by his contemporaries Pieter de Hooch, Jan Steen, and Johannes Vermeer. Their range of subjects—domestic scenes, music-making, dancing, social gatheringsattests to the popularity of paintings inspired by Dutch daily life.

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