Gerard ter Borch, "A Young Woman at Her Toilet with a Maid " (1650-51) |
Friday, May 3, 2019
April 22, 2019 Issue
Peter Schjeldahl’s mention of Gerard ter Borch, in his capsule review of the Metropolitan Museum’s In Praise of Painting exhibition, in this week’s issue, caught my eye. He calls Ter Borch a “key figure” in the Dutch Golden Age of painting. I haven’t thought of Ter Borch in a long time. I know his work through Zbigniew Herbert’s brilliant “Gerard Terborch: The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie,” included in Herbert’s 1991 essay collection, Still Life with a Bridle. In that piece, Herbert noted, among other things, Ter Borch’s “mastery in rendering the consistency of objects, especially fabrics, from rustling cool silks to meaty wool that absorbs light.” See, for example, the luminous pink satin dress and the velvety pile of an upholstered chair in Ter Borch’s A Young Woman at Her Toilet with a Maid (1650-51), one of six Ter Borchs currently on view at the Met.
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