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    Museum collections / Art Institute of Chicago
    The Music Lesson
    Gerard ter Borch the Younger. The Music Lesson, c. 1670. The Art Institute of Chicago. Public domain (CC0).
    AT-00000134

    Public data from the Art Institute of Chicago. Learn more

    The Music Lesson

    by Gerard ter Borch the Younger

    Provenance

    Possibly sold Amsterdam, October 1, 1738, no. 19 for 200 florins [according to Gudlaugsson 1960; see Gerard Hoet, Catalogus of naamlyst van Schilderyen (The Hague, 1752), p. 556]. Probably Johan Pieter Wierman, Leyden; his sale, Amsterdam, August 18, 1762, no. 34 to Diemen [price and buyer according to an annotated sale catalogue in the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague; although the provenance of this painting and the Getty example have been confused in the past, the AIC view was probably in the Wierman collection because the music master is described as beating time with a – strykstok – or bow]. Probably Jan Jacob Brants (died 1813); sold his sale Pieter Yver, Amsterdam, April 20, 1813, lot 30 for 275 florins to Jer. deVries [price and buyer according to an annotated sale catalogue in the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague; although the provenance of this painting and the Getty example have been confused in the past, the AIC view was probably in the Brants collection because the music master is described as beating time with a – strijkstok – or bow]. Possibly John Fairlie, Esq. [according to Smith 1833]; possibly his sale, 1830, for 130 gs to Michael Peacock [sale information according to Smith 1833]; possibly Michael Peacock (died 1843), London; possibly sold his sale Foster and Son, February 28, 1844, lot 12. Presumably Prince Anatole Demidoff, Villa San Donato, near Florence (died 1870); by descent to his nephew Prince Paul Demidoff (died 1885), San Donato; offered for sale Florence, Pillet, Le Roy and Mannheim, March 15-April 10, 1880, no. 1049, bought in; by descent to Princess Demidoff (formerly Princess Lise Troubetzkoi), 1885; sold through Durand-Ruel, Paris, June 1890, as part of a group of Dutch and Flemish paintings, many from the Demidoff collection, with funds advanced by Martin A. Ryerson and other trustees of the Art Institute [annual report 1891]; the cost of 1891.1 was re-imbursed by Charles T. Yerkes.

    Exhibition history

    Detroit Institute of Arts, The Ninth Loan Exhibition: Dutch Genre and Landscape Painting of the Seventeenth Century, October 16–November 10, 1929, no. 74. New York World’s Fair, European Paintings and Sculpture from 1300–1800, May–October 1939, no. 368. City Art Museum of St. Louis, 40 Masterpieces: A Loan Exhibition of Paintings from American Museums, October 6–November 10, 1947, no. 37. Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, June 1–November 1, 1933, no. 79. Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, June 1–November 1, 1934, no. 113.

    Publications

    John Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters, vol. 4 (London, 1833), p. 124, no. 20. “Famous Pictures for Chicago,” Chicago Daily Tribune (July 3, 1890). “Notes on Current Art,” Chicago Daily Tribune (July 6, 1890), p. 32. “Chicago an Art Center,” Chicago Daily Tribune, November 9, 1890, p. 1. Art Institute of Chicago, Catalogue of Works of Old Dutch Masters and Other Pictures (Chicago, 1890), p. 19, no. 6. Art Institute of Chicago, General Catalogue of Objects in the Museum (Chicago, 1901), pp. 147, no. 15. Art Institute of Chicago, General Catalogue of Objects in the Museum (Chicago, 1904), p. 152–53, no. 15. Art Institute of Chicago, Important Facts Regarding the Art Institute of Chicago: with Reproductions of the Demidoff Masterpieces (Chicago, 1905), pp. 8–9. Art Institute of Chicago, General Catalogue of Sculpture, Paintings and Other Objects (Chicago, 1910), pp. 161–62. Franz Hellens, Gérard Terborch (Brussels, 1911), p. 127. C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, vol. 5 (London, 1913), pp. 46, 47–48, 54, no. 130. Art Institute of Chicago, Catalogue of Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture and Architecture (Chicago, 1917), p. 113, no. 15, ill. Art Institute of Chicago, Handbook of Sculpture, Architecture, Paintings, and Drawings (Chicago, 1920), p. 19, no. 15. “Old World Masters in New World Galleries,” The Antiquarian 3 (1924), p. 27. Art Institute of Chicago, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (Chicago, 1925), pp. 15, 127, no. 15, ill. Philip Hendy, The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: Catalogue of the Exhibited Paintings and Drawings (Boston, 1931), p. 355. Art Institute of Chicago, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (Chicago, 1932), p. 22, ill. Official Souvenir Guide and Picture Book: New York World’s Fair (New York, 1939), no page. Charles Fabens Kelley, “Chicago: Record Years,” Art News 51 (1952), p. 59. Sturla J. Gudlaugsson, Katalog der Gemälde Gerard ter Borchs: sowie biographisches Material (The Hague, 1960), vol. 1, p. 335, ill; vol. 2, pp. 205. Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago, 1961) p. 446. Frederick A. Sweet, “Great Chicago Collectors,” Apollo 84 (1966), p. 190. Philip Hendy, European and American Paintings in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1974), p. 34. Colin Simpson, Artful Partners: Bernard Berenson and Joseph Duveen (New York, 1986), p. 83. Peter. C. Sutton, A Guide to Dutch Art in America (Washington D.C. and Grand Rapids, 1986), p. 53. Ruud Priem, “The ‘most excellent collection’ of Lucretia Johanna van Winter: the years 1809–22,” Simiolus 25 (1997), p. 162. Mark Leonard, “The Artist’s Voice,” in Personal Viewpoints: Thoughts about Paintings Conservation (Los Angeles, 2003), p. 58 n. 7. Aneta Georgievska-Shine, Vermeer and the Art of Love (London, 2022), pp. 24-25, 27, 144fn9, fig. 13.

    Quick Overview

    Artist
    Gerard ter Borch the Younger (Dutch, 1617-1681)
    Date
    c. 1670
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    63.6 × 50.4 cm (25 × 19 7/8 in.); Framed: 84.8 × 70.8 × 6.4 cm (33 3/8 × 27 7/8 × 2 1/2 in.)
    Type
    Painting
    Classification
    painting
    Style
    17th Century
    Place
    Netherlands
    Department
    Painting and Sculpture of Europe
    Credit line
    Gift of Charles T. Yerkes
    Accession no.
    1891.1

    More by Gerard ter Borch the Younger in museum collections

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    • Curiosity

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    • Portrait of a Seated Man

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    • The Van Moerkerken Family

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    Open-access museum data

    This record comes from the open-access collection data that the Art Institute of Chicago publishes for unrestricted use (Creative Commons Zero). Art Trackers shows a selection of the museum's published fields. The Art Institute of Chicago is not an Art Trackers client and has not reviewed or endorsed this page; the museum's own website is the authoritative record.

    • View this work at the Art Institute of Chicago
    • The Art Institute of Chicago: open-access terms

    Data retrieved from the Art Institute of Chicago on October 7, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.

    Open-access museum record · AT-00000134

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