Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00009179About the Artwork
Every detail of his subject’s elaborate costume is skillfully recorded: glittering jewels, filmy lace, knots of ribbons, heavy black silk, and shimmering white satin. The ability to recreate satin’s luster was Gerard ter Borch’s particular trademark: he used fine flicks and sweeps of the brush, occasionally adding and wiping away tiny bits of paint to make the white fabric appear to shine. Ter Borch offset the profusion of costume detail by deliberately isolating the figure within a spare setting, allowing us to appreciate the woman’s cool composure. Although her identity is not known, she was undoubtedly a member of the wealthy Dutch elite.
Provenance
(presumably) Jan Jacob [Jean-Jacques de] Faesch [1755-1831], Amsterdam) 1833: (de Vries … Roos, Amsterdam, sale Jean-Jacques de Jean-Jacques de Faesch, July 3, 1833, no. 56 [“Een prachtig gekleed Dame, staande bij een tafel en stoel, beide met rood bekleedsel”, canvas, 6p 3d x 5p 1d; fl. 90, to Chaplin or Chaplen or Chapplaen]) 1877: F. Austen, London [M. Knoedler & Co., New York]; by 1923: Elisabeth Severance Prentiss, Cleveland, 1923, by bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1944.
Exhibition history
The Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition: The Official Art Exhibit of the Great Lakes Exposition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 26-October 4, 1936). 35th Anniversary Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 20-September 30, 1951). Great Portraits by Famous Painters. Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN (organizer) (November 11-December 23, 1952). Seventeenth Century Dutch Paintings and Drawings. Akron Art Museum (organizer) (October 10-November 11, 1956). Masters of Seven Centuries. Wildenstein & Co., New York, NY (February 27-March 31, 1962). Juxtapositions. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (September 11-October 10, 1965). Dutch Art and Life in the Seventeenth Century. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (July 10-September 2, 1973). Dutch Seventeenth-Century Portraiture, the Golden Age. John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, FL (organizer) (December 4, 1980-February 8, 1981). Gerard ter Borch. National Gallery of Art, Landover, MD (November 7, 2004-January 30, 2005); The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI (February 28-May 22, 2005). Rembrandt exhibition - Reciprocal Loan. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO (organizer) (October 30, 2011-September 16, 2012).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Gerard ter Borch (Dutch, 1617–1681)
- Date
- c. 1665
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Framed: 87.5 x 77 x 7 cm (34 7/16 x 30 5/16 x 2 3/4 in.); Unframed: 63.3 x 52.7 cm (24 15/16 x 20 3/4 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- The Elisabeth Severance Prentiss Collection
- Accession no.
- 1944.93
More by Gerard ter Borch in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00009179
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