Support The single, vertically grained oak plank was thinned to approx. 0.6 cm and cradled. The wooden strips (approx. 0.7 cm) on all sides were added at a later date.
Preparatory layers The single, white chalk ground extends up to the edges of the support.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye, infrared photography or infrared reflectography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the support. The composition was first roughly sketched with vivid lines and thin, loose brushwork in transparent amber colours (containing lead white and very fine ochre and umber particles). Some strokes were left uncovered to play a role in the final painting, for example in the maid’s sleeve. A few of the darkest lines have become visible to the naked eye over time, most clearly in the bottom left area of the seated woman’s dress. The composition was built up from the back to the front and from dark to light, leaving the figures in reserve. An opaque, light grey paint (consisting of large lead-white particles and medium-sized black pigment particles) was applied throughout and serves as a cool mid-tone to model shadows. It is especially apparent in the seated woman, where it was left exposed in the satin gown and shows through the transparent flesh tones. The latter were constructed with thin, translucent strokes of smoothly blended paint on top of the light grey layer. Vigorous, loose, dry, white scumbles were used to contour forms and highlight folds, for example at the top of the woman’s right sleeve. Brown glazes were applied, particularly at the back of her neck, to complete the modelling and deepen the shadows lent by the light grey underpaint. Macro X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (MA-XRF) revealed objects on the table which were not included in the final composition. It also showed a partially worked-up previous version of the face of the maid, and that her head, cap and right shoulder were initially placed somewhat higher and further to the left, which is also visible with infrared reflectography (IRR). Both techniques disclosed significant changes to the boy as well. An earlier version of the head above the current one indicates that he was either taller or was placed higher at first; both the face and the broader, more loosely painted hairstyle had already been worked up in colour. Some changes to the boy are faintly visible to the naked eye due to abrasion of the paint layer, as are several light-coloured forms which have no apparent connection to the final composition, such as a few white brush marks in the maid’s cap and bodice and the boy’s fingers, and some hints of pink in the maid’s blouse, in the woman’s chest in the reflection and in the lower right corner.
Willem de Ridder [publication date 2026]

A. Wallert, ‘The Miracle of Gerard ter Borch’s Satin’, in A.K. Wheelock Jr et al., Gerard ter Borch, exh. cat. Washington (National Gallery of Art)/Detroit (Detroit Institute of Arts) 2004-05, pp. 32-41, esp. pp. 38-40

Fair. There is an old crack in the panel from top to bottom with small cracks alongside. A thin, dark red lake on the cosmetic jar has faded. The paint layer has become transparent and is abraded throughout. Many small, translucent glassy particles, possibly due to the formation of metal soaps, are present in the paint surface, most noticeably in the dark background around the boy where the paint has also wrinkled and especially around his head.

…; ? sale, Edward Coxe (1748-1814, London), London (Peter Coxe), 23 April 1807 sqq., no. 32 (‘A Lady at her Toilette, with a female Attendant, and Boy waiting – grouped with great judgement, and finished with perfection and accuracy – the reflection in the Mirror happily accomplished’), £15 4s 6d, bought in;¹¹Copy RKD. ? sale, Edward Coxe et al. [section Edward Coxe], London (Mr Squibb), 13 (15) April 1815 sqq., no. 44 (‘A Lady at Her Toilet’), £16 16s;²²Copy RKD.…; ? sale, Easthoven, London (Mr Christie), 29 April 1826, no. 124, ? 22 gns (‘A Lady in a white satin dress, her back turned to the spectator, in conversation with her female attendant, while a servant boy holds a toilette glass, in which her face is pleasingly reflected; a very highly finished picture’);³³Copy The National Gallery, London.…; anonymous sale, Amsterdam (J. de Vries), 19 July 1826, no. 54 (‘TERBURGH, (G.) hoog 3 p. 4 d., breed 2 p. 6 d. [34 x 26 cm] Paneel. Eene Dame in wit satijn gekleed, zittende met hare rug gekeerd naar den beschouwer, aan eene tafel, waarachter een jongeling staat, eene spiegel voor haar in de handen houdende, en waarin haar aangezigt is voorgesteld, nevens haar staat eene burgervrouw, alle ter halver lijve’), fl. 260, to the dealer Jeronimo de Vries, Amsterdam;⁴⁴Copy RKD.…; anonymous sale, Rotterdam (A. Lamme), 26 April 1830, no. 68 (‘Eene Dame die haar toilet zit te maken, zeer prachtig in eene witte satijne met goud geborduurde japon gekleed, voor dezelve staat een spiegel waarin men haar gezigt ziet, verder eene kamenier en kamerjongen […] Pan., h. 33 d. br. 24 d. [33 x 24 cm]’), fl. 280, to the dealer Lamme;⁵⁵Copy RMA.…; anonymous collection, London, 1906;⁶⁶F. Lugt et al., Album de planches de l’exposition de maîtres hollandais du XVIIe siècle: Organisée par MM. Frederik Muller & Cie dans leurs galéries Doelenstraat 16-18 à Amsterdam à l’occasion du tercentenaire de Rembrandt, exh. cat. Amsterdam 1906, p. 7, no. 16.…; collection Sir George Donaldson (1845-1925), London;⁷⁷C. Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, V, Esslingen/Paris 1912, p. 25, no. 52.…; ? Galerie C. Brunner, Paris, 1910, no. 53 (‘Jeune dame a sa toilette, composition de trois figures, bois, H 33 x L 25 cent, Collection de M.A.L.’);⁸⁸Hofstede de Groot notes, RKD.…; purchased from the dealer Muller, Amsterdam, by Albert Lehman, Paris, through the mediation of Frits Lugt, between 1906 and 1911;⁹⁹Note RMA; Exposition [rétrospective] des grands et petits maîtres hollandais du XVIIe siècle, exh. cat. Paris (Salle du Jeu de Paume) 1911, p. 26, no. 150. his sale, Paris (Galerie Georges Petit), 12 June 1925 sqq., no. 289, fr. 325,000, to the dealer Féral;¹⁰¹⁰Copy RMA.…; collection R. Schumann, Paris, after 1925;¹¹¹¹Note RMA.…; collection Étienne Nicolas (1870-1960), Paris, 1937;¹²¹²Note RMA. from whom, fl. 38,000, to Frederik Schmidt-Degener, for Isaac de Bruijn (1872-1953), Spiez and Muri, near Bern, June 1937;¹³¹³Note RMA. donated by Isaac de Bruijn and his wife, Johanna Geertruida van der Leeuw (1877-1960), Spiez and Muri, to the museum, 1949, but kept in usufruct;¹⁴¹⁴Note RMA. transferred to the museum, 1961

Object number: SK-A-4039

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

The technique, composition and subject of this painting place it among the genre pieces that Gerard ter Borch made after his return from Münster around 1648. Those works have bright, balanced compositions and are on small panels, with the figures close to the foreground and set against an empty background. The execution is looser than in Ter Borch’s later genre scenes, most notably in the rendering of textures.²²²²See also SK-A-4038. For the painting technique, see A. Wallert, ‘The Miracle of Gerard ter Borch’s Satin’, in A.K. Wheelock Jr et al., Gerard ter Borch, exh. cat. Washington (National Gallery of Art)/Detroit (Detroit Institute of Arts) 2004-05, pp. 32-41, esp. pp. 39-40. The composition is very closely related to Ter Borch’s Company Playing Cards (although there the mirror is missing), which is from shortly before 1650.²³²³Winterthur, Oskar Reinhart Collection ‘Am Römerholz’, illustrated in M. Reinhard-Felice (ed.), Oskar Reinhart Collection ‘Am Römerholz’, Winterthur: Complete Catalogue, coll. cat. Winterthur 2005, p. 231. It also features a woman seen from the back, and a detail such as her hair style is also the same.

The Rijksmuseum painting can be dated to shortly after 1650 from the woman’s dress.²⁴²⁴S.J. Gudlaugsson, ‘De datering van de schilderijen van Gerard ter Borch’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 2 (1948-49), pp. 235-67, esp. p. 246. She is wearing a fashionable satin gown with gold stitching, which suggests that she is of high birth.²⁵²⁵McNeil Kettering in A.K. Wheelock Jr et al., Gerard ter Borch, exh. cat. Washington (National Gallery of Art)/Detroit (Detroit Institute of Arts) 2004-05, p. 81. The young manservant and the maid also point to a wealthy household, which would be in line with the elegant figures and interiors in Ter Borch’s genre scenes from after circa 1655. The woman’s cloak hanging over the boy’s left arm indicates that this is a moment just before her departure or after her arrival.

The artist’s half-sister Gesina, whom Ter Borch repeatedly depicted in genre pieces and drawings in the 1650s and ’60, very probably served as his model.²⁶²⁶S.J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert Ter Borch, I, The Hague 1959, pp. 76-77. As regards the subject, this work is one of a small group executed around 1650 showing young women at their toilet in front of a mirror, sometimes attended by a maidservant.²⁷²⁷S.J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert Ter Borch, II, The Hague 1960, nos. 76 (copy after a lost original), 77, 80; illustrated in ibid., I, 1959, pp. 236, 237, 240. Gudlaugsson suspected that the Rijksmuseum scene is based on an allegory of vanitas, or transience, by Bernardo Strozzi which was in the collection of Gerard Reynst in Amsterdam in the 1650s.²⁸²⁸S.J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert Ter Borch, II, The Hague 1960, p. 101, no. 83. He also noted a parallel with emblems by Roemer Visscher, Pieter Cornelisz Hooft and Otto van Veen in which a mirror alludes to the fleeting nature of life.²⁹²⁹See also E. de Jongh, Zinne- en minnebeelden in de schilderkunst van de 17e eeuw, Amsterdam 1967, p. 78. Ter Borch would certainly have known a print attributed to Theodor Matham after Strozzi’s painting, because his half-brother Moses made a drawn copy of it.³⁰³⁰See A. McNeil Kettering, Drawings from the Ter Borch Studio Estate in the Rijksmuseum, I, The Hague 1988, p. 326, no. M 75. Apart from the similarities in the use of the mirror and the reflected image, however, there are major differences from Strozzi’s picture, such as the considerable age of the woman in the latter³¹³¹See A. Janssen, Grijsaards in zwart-wit: De verbeelding van de ouderdom in de Nederlandse prentkunst (1550-1650), Zutphen 2007, pp. 284-85. and the slew of allegorical motifs. Ter Borch’s painting, by contrast, stands out for the absence of explanatory details.

Various associations were attached to mirrors in the seventeenth century, and it is difficult to say whether Ter Borch had a specific meaning in mind.³²³²For mirrors as conveyors of meaning see G.F. Hartlaub, Zauber des Spiegels: Geschichte und Bedeutung des Spiegels in der Kunst, Munich 1951; H. Schwarz, ‘The Mirror in Art’, The Art Quarterly 15 (1952), pp. 96-118. It has been suggested that this may be an allusion to the popular theme of Venus at her mirror, or that the woman’s reflection might contain a reference to sensual beauty.³³³³McNeil Kettering in A.K. Wheelock Jr et al., Gerard ter Borch, exh. cat. Washington (National Gallery of Art)/Detroit (Detroit Institute of Arts) 2004-05, p. 83. That would be too far-fetched, in view of the everyday nature of the scene and its general lack of provocation. That sensuality can be perceived, though, in Peter Paul Rubens’s version of the subject,³⁴³⁴Vaduz-Vienna, Liechtenstein – The Princely Collections; illustrated in J. Kräftner and R. Trnek (eds.), Rubens in Wien: Die Meisterwerke: Die Gemälde in den Sammlungen des Fürsten von und zu Liechtenstein, des Kunsthistorischen Museums und der Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der bildenden Künste in Wien, exh. cat. Vienna (Liechtenstein Museum) 2004-05, p. 94. making it very different from Ter Borch’s subdued picture. One striking similarity, though, is that Rubens’s young woman is also shown from the back. The fact that her face can only be seen in mirror image is rarely found in seventeenth-century paintings. But whereas Rubens’s Venus gazes straight at the viewer, Ter Borch used his woman’s reflection to establish an ingenious connection between her and her maidservant. It is an enclosed world in which a great deal is subtly suggested but not made explicit by the indefinable psychological interaction. In addition, by making the satin gown so prominent Ter Borch displayed his phenomenal skill in rendering fabrics.

Gerbrand Korevaar [publication date 2026]

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

E. Plietzsch, Gerard ter Borch, Vienna 1944, p. 40, no. 20; S.J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert Ter Borch, I, The Hague 1959, pp. 79-81; ibid., II, 1960, p. 101, no. 83; E. de Jongh, Zinne- en minnebeelden in de schilderkunst van de 17e eeuw, Amsterdam 1967, p. 76; 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. 98-99, no. 21; Wieseman in A.K. Wheelock Jr et al., Gerard ter Borch, exh. cat. Washington (National Gallery of Art)/Detroit (Detroit Institute of Arts) 2004-05, pp. 81-83, no. 16

1976, p. 131, no. A 4039

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2026, 'Gerard ter (II) Borch, Woman at a Mirror, c. 1650', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200108276