Gerard ter Borch (1617-1681), Girl with a Letter, possibly Gesina ter Borch (1631-1690), half-sister of the painter, c. 1650, Oil on paper mounted on panel, 28.5 x 23.0 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
In this small painting, Gerard ter Borch is believed to have depicted his younger half-sister, Gesina ter Borch. The figure holding a letter or newspaper was a recurring subject in Dutch genre painting, and one that carried a particular emotional charge. Such images could suggest romance, but they equally turned on grief and dread: with families separated by military service, letters and gazettes were the primary means by which news of a siege, a naval engagement, or a death reached those left behind. They were not simply studio props but objects weighted with the anxious expectation of bad tidings.
The personal circumstances of the ter Borch family give this context unusual resonance. Their younger brother Moses ter Borch (1645–1667), a gifted draughtsman, died from wounds sustained at the Battle of Landguard Fort during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, and was buried at Harwich. Gerard and Gesina subsequently produced a memorial portrait of him together, now in the Rijksmuseum.
Gesina is shown in stylised peasant dress, a choice that points to a degree of artistic self-consciousness and experimentation. Beyond her role as sitter and model, she was an accomplished artist in her own right, working principally in watercolour and calligraphy. Her three known albums, now in the Rijksmuseum, remained within the family rather than entering the commercial art market.
References
Eaker, A. (2024) Gesina ter Borch. Los Angeles: Getty Publications.
Honig, E.A. (2001–2002) ‘The art of being “artistic”: Dutch women’s creative practices in the seventeenth century’, Woman’s Art Journal, 22(2), pp. 31–39. [Available : http://www.jstor.org/stable/1358900 ( Accesssed 18 March 2024)
Wheelock, A.K., Jr., Kettering, A.M., Wallert, A. and Wieseman, M.E. (2004) Gerard ter Borch. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art / New Haven: Yale University Press
