The Music Lesson

Curatorial Overview

“In this small-scale scene of everyday life, a woman plays the double-headed lute as her companion marks the tempo. He is presumably her music instructor, but the similarity in their ages and the presence of the bed in the background make the precise relationship of the figures tantalizingly ambiguous. Gerard ter Borch the Younger painted many images like this one, featuring military officers and elegant young women in shimmering satin conversing, making music, or exchanging letters.”