About the Artwork
This sumptuous picture, depicting in vivid detail the opulent furnishings and costumes of a late-seventeenth-century Dutch household, perhaps holds a hidden message. The elegant woman in a blue-and-white satin dress stands before a boudoir table loaded with expensive accessories: a gilt-framed mirror, a candelabra, a silver-gilt basin, and an oval silver brush box. She is attended not only by the maidservant who laces up her bodice, but also by a liveried page who carries a clean towel for his mistress. He wears a costly uniform, complete with vibrant red rosettes at the knees. While the eye is immediately drawn to the play of light on shimmering surfaces, the central figure’s abstracted and melancholic expression invites a deeper reading. Her thoughts seem far from the luxury around her, as she plays pensively with the ring on her finger. It may be that the artist Gerard ter Borch intended the composition to serve as a vanitas, a genre of painting exploring the futility of worldly riches.
Lady at Her Toilette
ca. 1660
Gerard ter Borch
1617-1681
Dutch
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Oil on canvas
Unframed: 30 × 23 1/2 inches (76.2 × 59.7 cm) Framed: 44 inches × 37 5/8 inches × 3 1/4 inches (111.8 × 95.6 × 8.3 cm)
Paintings
European Painting
Founders Society Purchase, Eleanor Clay Ford Fund, General Membership Fund, Endowment Income Fund and Special Activities Fund
65.10
Public Domain
Markings
Signed, upper left, on mantle: GTB (the G, T and B form a monogram)
Provenance
collection Pieter van Winter (Amsterdam, Netherlands).1797, Louvre (Paris, France);
1802, Chateau Saint Cloud (Saint-Cloud, France);
1833, Collection Willems (Frankfurt am-Main, Germany);
1836, Collection Lionel de Rothschild (London, England);
collection Sir Nathaniel Mayer Rothschild (London, England);
collection Lord Alfred Rothschild (London, England);
daughter of Lord Rothschild, Collection Mrs. Clive Behrens;
son-in-law of Mrs. Behrens, Collection Major P. E. C. Harris (London, England);
1965, dealer, Rosenberg & Stiebel (New York, New York, USA);
1965-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
For more information on provenance, please visit:
Provenance pageExhibition History
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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.
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Notice des tableaux des écoles française et flamand, Exposés dans la grande Gallerie du Musée Central des Arts, dont l'ouverture a eu lieu le 18 Germinal an VII. Paris, 1801, p. 102, no. 585.
Smith, J. Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the most eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, vol. 4. London, 1833, no. 61.
Exhibition. Exh. cat., British Institution. London, 1844, cat. 103.
Waagen, G. Treasures of Art in Great Britain, vol. 2. London, 1854, p. 129.
Exhibition. Exh. cat., Royal Academy. London, 1878, cat. 157.
Exhibition. Exh. cat., Royal Academy. London, 1885, cat. 121.
Hofstede de Groot, C. Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten Holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts 5. Esslingen, 1912, cat. 47.
Hofstede de Groot, C. Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, vol. 5. London, no. 47.
Exhibition. Exh. cat., Royal Academy. London, 1929, cat. 223.
Plietszch, E. Gerard ter Borch. Vienna, 1944, no. 82, repr.
Dutch Pictures 1450-1750. Exh. cat., Royal Academy. London, 1952, cat. 395.
Gudlaugsson, S. J. Gerard Ter Borch, vol. 1. The Hague, 1959, pp. 123-124, 315, no. 165, repr.
Gudlaugsson, S. J. Gerard Ter Borch, vol. 2. The Hague, 1960, p. 169, no. 165.
Haverkamp-Begeman, E. "Terborch's Lady at Her Toilet." Art News 64, no. 8 (Dec. 1965): 38-41, 62, repr.
The Age of Rembrandt. Exh. cat., California Palace of the Legion of Honor. San Francisco, 1966, cat. 85, repr.
Artforum 5, no. 5 (Jan. 1967): 43, repr.
Paintings of 17th Century Dutch Interiors. Exh. cat., Nelson Gallery of Art and Atkins Museum. Kansas City, 1967, pp. 14-15, cat. 23, repr.
Mayer, D. "Les tablelaux de Saint-Cloud sous Napoleon Ier." Archives de l'Art Français 24 (1969): 246, 267.
DIA Handbook, 1971, p. 109.
Gerard Ter Borch Zwolle 1617 Deventer 1681. Exh. cat., Mauritshuis. The Hague, 1974, pp. 158-159, cat. 45, repr.
Bailey, A. "The World of Jan de Witt.” Horizon 17 (Winter 1975): 5-23, esp. p. 21, repr.
Exhibition of Pictures from Museums in the United States of America. Exh. cat., Hermitage Museum. Moscow, 1976, cat. 10, repr.
Chefs-d'Oeuvres des Musées des Etats-Unis: de Giorgione à Picasso. Exh. cat., Musée Marmottan. Paris, 1976, cat. 16, repr.
Cummings, Frederick. J. University Liggett Antiques Show. Exh. cat., University Liggett School. Grosse Pointe, MI, 1977, p. 91, no. 88, repr. (not in exhibition).
Cummings, Frederick J. "Preface.” Bulletin of the DIA 57, no. 1 (1979): 5-8, esp. p. 6, fig 1. (volume devoted to Edsel & Eleonor Ford as collectors).
Cummings, Frederick J., ed. Selected Works from the Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1979, pp. 69, 77, no. 47 (ill.).
Masters of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Genre Painting. Exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia, 1984, pp. 150-151, cat. 134, pl. 72.
Glueck, G. "When Genre Painting reached its Zenith." The New York Times, March 25, 1984, section H, p. 35.
100 Masterworks from the Detroit Institute of Arts. New York, 1985, pp. 112-113, repr.
Stone-Ferrier, L. Images of Textiles: the Weave of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art and Society. Ann Arbor, 1985, p. 164, fig. 77.
Sutton, P. C. Dutch Art in America. Grand Rapids, 1986, p. 88, fig. 124.
Gombrich, E.H. Reflections on the History of Art: Views and Reviews. Oxford, 1987, pp. 110-11, fig. 26.
Masterpieces from the Detroit Institute of Arts. Exh. cat., Bunkamura Museum of Art. Tokyo, 1989, pp. 61 208, cat. 29, repr.
Priem, R. "The 'most excellent collection' of Lucretia Johanna van Winter: the years 1809-22, with a catalogue of the works purchased.” Simiolus 25, nos. 2/3 (1997): 103-234.
A Moral Compass: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Painting in the Netherlands. Exh. cat., Grand Rapids Art Museum. Grand Rapids, 1999, p. 48, cat. 3, repr. (cat. entry by H. M. Luttikhuizen).
Art & Home Dutch Interiors in the Age of Rembrandt. Exh. cat., Newark Museum. Newark, 2001, pp. 41-42, 197, cat. 86, fig. 59 (exh. organized by M. Westermann).
Wieseman, M. E. Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting. Doornspijk, 2002, p. 63, fig. 19.
Keyes, George S. et al. Masters of Dutch Painting: The Detroit Institute of Arts. London, 2004, frontispiece, pp. 2, 30–33, no. 9 (ill.).
"Gerard ter Borch.” Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 2004-2005, pp. 135-137, 207, cat. 34, repr. (exh. organized by A. K. Wheelock, Jr., for the AFA).
Keyes, G.S. "A Brief History of the European Paintings Collection at the Detroit Institute of Arts with a Focus on the Dutch School.” Iin the catalogue for TEFAF Maastricht (2005): 10-15.
Liedtke, W. Dutch Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2007, vol. 1, p. 76 (cited under Terborch, Curiosity, inv. 49.7.38--not likely as a companion painting).
Westermann, Mariët. Sound, Silence and Modernity in Dutch Pictures of Manners. Edinburgh, 2007, pp. 26-28.
Baer, Ronni et al. Class Distinctions: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Boston, 2015, p. 135; p. 151; p. 169, fig. 30 (ill.); p. 218; p. 320, no. 30.
Roodenburg, Herman. “Smelling Rank and Status” In Class Distinctions: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer. Boston, 2015, pp. 41–54, p. 49.
Winkel, Marieke de. “Ambition and Apparel” In Class Distinctions: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer. Boston, 2015, pp. 55–73, p. 56.
Wheelock, Jr., Arthur K. "Reflections." In Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Ireland. Dublin, 2017, pp. 152-156, cat 7.2 (ills.). [as Lady at her Toilet.]
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Credit Line for Reproduction
Gerard ter Borch, Lady at Her Toilette, ca. 1660, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, Eleanor Clay Ford Fund, General Membership Fund, et al., 65.10.
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