Gesina ter Borch (1631-1690) was a Dutch watercolourist and draughtswoman whose work survives primarily in the form of three albums of watercolours and calligraphy, now held at the Rijksmuseum. Despite the fact that her oeuvre is securely attributed and thoroughly catalogued, Ter Borch has surprisingly never been the subject of a dedicated monograph, until now. For the first time, this book highlights Ter Borchs watercolours and calligraphy in their own right, as well as her work as an art teacher, an archivist, and an artists model, and questions a historiography of womens art that frequently values oil painting over other media, and work for the market over amateur production. Adam Eaker revisits Gesina ter Borchs role in the genesis of Dutch high-life genre painting and its construction of gender and social class, comparing her art with that of her brother Gerard, and in so doing allows for a more nuanced understanding of the ideologies and achievements of Dutch genre painting.
Adam Eaker is Associate Curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. His recent publications include Van Dyck and the Making of English Portraiture (2022).
Preface; Authors Note; Introduction; 1 The Family Ter Borch; 2 Learning to Write; 3 Modern Pictures; 4 Art and Love; 5 The Triumph of Painting; 6 A Dance with Death; Epilogue
In this eloquent study, Adam Eaker has built a nuanced and engaging portrait of Gesina ter Borch, one that gives her voice and shows her range of complexities and contradictions. Moreover, he has demonstrated the depth of Gesina’s ambitions as an artist, and convincingly argued that she was an instrumental figure in the development of her brother Gerard’s distinctive and influential genre imagery. – Ilona van Tuinen, Head of the Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam
Adam Eaker’s book is long overdue. He places Gesina ter Borch in fascinating new contexts and he also uses her as a lens to illustrate how a woman of this period understood contemporary visual culture, and could sometimes read written materials against their moralistic grain. It is a fascinating study that does full justice to an important female voice. – Elizabeth Alice Honig, University of Maryland
Precluded by her gender, class, and times from becoming a professional painter, Gesina ter Borch crafted for herself an immeasurably rich intellectual and artistic life apart from the thriving 17th-century Dutch art market. Drawing on Gesina’s albums of visually stunning watercolors, Adam Eaker tells the story of a modern woman – a painter, poet, musician, family archivist, and chronicler of her times – driven to create by love of art. - H. Perry Chapman, Editor in chief, Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art and Professor emerita, University of Delaware
