Support The single, horizontally grained, vertical oak plank has a pronounced grain pattern. The plank was thinned to approx. 1 cm and cradled. Small wooden strips (approx. 0.7 cm) were added on all sides at a later date.
Preparatory layers The single, white ground extends up to the edges of the support. It consists of white pigment and an occasional black pigment particle.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the support. Dark underpainting is evident beneath the light areas of the clothing, particularly in the sleeves. These brushstrokes cannot be made more visible with infrared examination. The composition was built up from the back, including the table and pillow, to the front, reserving the figure and hair. Within the figure, reserves were left for the sleeves, arms and hands. The flesh tones were softly blended with wet-in-wet strokes. The rather opaque paint was loosely applied without strong attention to detail, but the colour transitions were carefully closed. The upper contour of the sitter’s left arm extends over the background, beyond its initial reserve.
Gwen Tauber [publication date 2026]

Fair. Discoloured retouching is evident along two cracks running across the centre of the panel.

…; sale, Samuel van Huls (1655-1734), The Hague, 3 September 1737, no. 88 (‘Een zittent Boerinnetje met een Brief in de Handt na ’t leven, ongemeen uitvoerig, door denzelven [Terburg], h. 11 en drie vierde d. br. 9 d. [30.2 x 23.1 cm]’), fl. 91;¹¹G. Hoet, Catalogus of naamlyst van schilderyen, met derzelver pryzen zedert een langen reeks van jaaren zoo in Holland als op andere plaatzen in het openbaar verkogt: Benevens een verzameling van lysten van verscheyden nog in wezen zynde cabinetten, I, The Hague 1752, p. 486, no. 88.…; collection Comte Joseph Raousset de Boulbon, Avignon, 18th century;²²Inscription on an engraving by Johann Georg Wille (1715-1808), as Ter Borch; illustrated in L. Bøgh Rønberg et al. (eds.), Two Golden Ages: Masterpieces of Dutch and Danish Painting, exh. cat. Copenhagen (Statens Museum for Kunst)/Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2001, p. 13.…; collection Jules Porgès (1839-1921), Paris;³³C. Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, V, Esslingen/Paris 1912, p. 41, no. 102.…; the dealer F. Kleinberger, Paris, 1908;⁴⁴W. von Bode, Die Sammlung Oscar Huldschinsky, Berlin 1908 (unpag., ill.); W. von Bode, Die Sammlung Oscar Huldschinsky, Frankfurt 1909 (unpag.). collection Oscar Huldschinsky (1846-1931), Berlin, 1909, 1912;⁵⁵W. von Bode, Die Sammlung Oscar Huldschinsky, Berlin 1908 (unpag., ill.); W. von Bode, Die Sammlung Oscar Huldschinsky, Frankfurt 1909 (unpag.); C. Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, V, Esslingen/Paris 1912, p. 41, no. 102. his sale, Berlin (P. Cassirer and H. Helbling), 10 May 1928, no. 37, fl. 48,807, to the dealer P.& D. Colnaghi, for Isaac de Bruijn (1872-1953) and his wife, Johanna Geertruida van der Leeuw (1877-1960), Spiez and Muri, near Bern;⁶⁶Note RMA. by whom bequeathed to the museum, December 1960

Object number: SK-A-4038

Credit line: De Bruijn-van der Leeuw Bequest, Muri, Switzerland

Seated Girl in Rural Dress is datable to shortly before 1650 on the basis of the subject, composition and painting technique.¹⁴¹⁴S.J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert Ter Borch, II, The Hague 1960, p. 99. E. Plietzsch, Gerard ter Borch, Vienna 1944, p. 14, dates it c. 1648. Gerard ter Borch’s genre scenes from this period are characterized by fewer figures and accessories, a more concentrated spatial arrangement, and the use of half-lengths in balanced compositions, all of which focused attention on the figures.¹⁵¹⁵See, for example, S.J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert Ter Borch, I, The Hague 1959, pp. 228-32, nos. 66-70, pp. 238-39, nos. 78-79. In contrast to his later elegant genre pieces made after circa 1654,¹⁶¹⁶Cf. SK-A-404. he now depicted people in intimate settings engaged in seemingly everyday activities. Many of them are relatively freely brushed on smallish wooden supports.

Ter Borch often chose models from his immediate circle, but his favourite in the 1650s and ’60s was his half-sister Gesina.¹⁷¹⁷See A. McNeil Kettering, Drawings from the Ter Borch Studio Estate in the Rijksmuseum, I, The Hague 1988, p. 142. Ter Borch painted a similar side view of her in Tavern Scene with a Sleeping Soldier of c. 1650, now in Montpellier, Museé Fabre; illustrated in S.J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert Ter Borch, I, The Hague 1959, p. 239, no. 79. The Seated Girl in Rural Dress is one of the earliest works in which her likeness has been recognized.¹⁸¹⁸S.J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert Ter Borch, II, The Hague 1960, p. 99. In the eighteenth century Johann Georg Wille made a print after this picture in which he called the girl a ‘Gazettière hollandaise’ (Female Dutch news-vendor).¹⁹¹⁹Illustrated in L. Bøgh Rønberg et al. (eds.), Two Golden Ages: Masterpieces of Dutch and Danish Painting, exh. cat. Copenhagen (Statens Museum for Kunst)/Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2001, p. 13. The painting was in the collection of Count Joseph Raousset de Boulbon at the time. ‘Gazette’ can be seen on the sheet in her hand in Wille’s engraving, but no such word can be made out in the painting.

Gudlaugsson noted that she is holding a printed document,²⁰²⁰S.J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert Ter Borch, II, The Hague 1960, p. 99. but not a newspaper or letter as had hitherto been assumed.²¹²¹See J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, IV, London 1833, p. 137, no. 62. According to E. Plietzsch, Gerard ter Borch, Vienna 1944, p. 14, the girl is pondering on the contents of a letter. On the evidence of the dress and hair style, which was typical of country women in several small towns in North Holland,²²²²S.J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert Ter Borch, II, The Hague 1960, p. 99. However, his remark that the braids of hair pinned up on the head and held in place with a red ribbon was a traditional hair style for unmarried countrywomen is not mentioned in his source (see J. le Francq van Berkhey, Natuurlyke historie van Holland, III, Amsterdam 1772, pp. 624-26). Gudlaugsson associated the Rijksmuseum painting with the theatre. According to him the girl holds an occasional poem recited at family celebrations by a man or woman dressed as a peasant. This scene, then, would show the moment shortly preceding that.²³²³S.J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert Ter Borch, II, The Hague 1960, pp. 99-100. However, there are no visual references that would support such a precise interpretation. Ter Borch depicted several other simple people and everyday activities in this period. One of his favourite subjects was a person reading or musing upon a letter, and in this painting the evocation of contemplation seems to be more important than what is written on the paper. In any event, the girl is paying no attention to it, any more than she is to the sewing cushion and piece of fabric at her side.²⁴²⁴It is identified as a sewing cushion in M.G.A. Schipper-Van Lottum, ‘Een naijmantgen met een naijcussen’, Antiek 10 (1975), pp. 137-63, esp. p. 137. Such accessories can be an allusion to probity and diligence in portraits and genre scenes of young women.²⁵²⁵W.E. Franits, Paragons of Virtue: Women and Domesticity in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art, Cambridge 1993, pp. 21-29. If that is the case here, she has turned her attention away from them and has called a temporary halt to her household duties.

Gerbrand Korevaar [publication date 2026]

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

E. Plietzsch, Gerard ter Borch, Vienna 1944, p. 14, no. 27; S.J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert Ter Borch, I, The Hague 1959, pp. 78-79; ibid., II, 1960, pp. 99-100, no. 81; H.R. Hoetink et al., Gerard Ter Borch: Zwolle 1617-Deventer 1681, exh. cat. The Hague (Mauritshuis)/Münster (Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte) 1974, pp. 96-97, no. 20

1976, p. 131, no. A 4038

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2026, 'Gerard ter (II) Borch, Seated Girl in Rural Dress, c. 1648 - c. 1650', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200108274