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Your galleryThe Music Lesson
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Follow the stick in the man’s hand to the woman’s fingers on the strings, then find the sleeping spaniel on the chair and the instruments resting on the table.
A young woman plays a double-headed lute while the man beside her beats time. The Art Institute of Chicago notes that he is presumably her teacher, yet they look close in age and a bed stands in the shadows behind them, so their relationship stays uncertain. Gerard ter Borch painted many such quiet scenes of music, letters and conversation.
Oil on canvas · 63.6 × 50.4 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Dutch Golden Age
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Details and source
- Museum title
- The Music Lesson
- 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.)
- Credit line
- Gift of Charles T. Yerkes
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Artist’s life 1617–1681
View in the AtlasGaller’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.