Gesina ter Borch Is No Longer Just a Footnote in Her Brother's Story

On a Dutch country road, a young woman stops, hikes up her skirt, and commemorates her birthday by carving the date, 15 November 1661, into a tree.

Not quite finished, she adds a French phrase that provides a clue about what occupied her mind that day: “Long live the heart that my heart loves.”

As Dutch artist Gesina ter Borch turned 30, she commemorated the occasion with this self-portrait (pictured above)—an apt representation for one whose body of work includes watercolors, illustrated poems, and excerpts from books written in meticulous calligraphy on subjects like romance and scenes from daily life. Ter Borch also took the role of “family historian” upon herself, carefully saving her and her relatives’ artistic endeavors in albums, ensuring that, centuries later, the family would live on through their art.

But she remains much less known today than her half brother, Gerard ter Borch the Younger, one of the most celebrated Dutch painters of the 17th century. That’s one reason why Adam Eaker, associate curator of paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, wanted to dive deeper into her story. The result is his new book, Gesina ter Borch, published this spring by Getty Publications.

“She’s someone who had fascinated me for many years,” Eaker says, “and I think she hadn’t gotten the attention in her own right that she deserved.”

So who was Gesina ter Borch? Let’s meet her.

Born into a life of art

Gesina was born in 1631 and lived most of her life in Zwolle, a provincial town at the intersection of several rivers in the eastern Netherlands. Her father, Gerard the Elder, was a painter and draftsman, though he gave up his artistic ambitions to continue his family legacy of serving as a license master (a collector of customs duties on commercial goods passing between the Dutch Republic and Holy Roman Empire). Still, he never truly left art behind. He developed an artistic curriculum for his sons Gerard the Younger, Harmen, and Moses so they could learn how to draw and paint.

However, Gesina received no such formal training. The family would have been proud that daughters such as her didn’t need to work for a living, and therefore didn’t need professional training. She did learn to read and studied music and the art of calligraphy (seen as suitable endeavors for well-born women) and eventually learned to draw. Her earliest dated piece is from 1648, when she was 17 years old.

“She didn’t study plaster casts, live models, topographical drawings—things we know Gerard the Elder was having his sons study. So, her rendering of physical space is not in perfect perspective, like her brothers’ works are,” Eaker says. “But I think there’s an incredible charm to her work. She has a wonderful eye for humor and anecdotal detail, and because she is a calligrapher, she is very invested in qualities of line. There is a real playfulness and artistry to the way that she uses line in her drawing.”

Favorite subjects

Gesina created albums featuring her drawings, watercolors, and examples of her calligraphy. She often copied out favorite poems or songs, juxtaposing them with drawings that share their themes. One of her favorite subjects was courtship; Gesina often explored her experiences and feelings about being a vrijster, or young woman who was not yet married. She also made allegorical works (like The Triumph of Painting over Death, in which she depicts herself painting at an easel, resting her foot on top of the collapsed form of Father Time), depictions of family members, and self-portraits. The ins and outs of daily life in Gesina’s world also proved inspirational—for example, outings to the countryside, goings-on at home, and social interactions.

Amateur status

Gesina never attempted to turn her artmaking into a vocation. But don’t feel too sorry for her. Eaker says there is no evidence she wanted to have a career like Gerard’s, which likely would have made her lose her high-class status.

Still, her art shouldn’t be written off as merely a “quaint hobby” either.

“I think she was devoted to her art for 40 years, and it was a huge part of her identity. She shared her albums with select admirers. She had a whole coterie around her who wrote poems in praise of her,” Eaker says. “But at the same time, she had the privilege of being insulated from the marketplace. She did not have to support herself. And so she really was able to work from love.”

As far as Gesina and Gerard’s relationship, it appears to have been warm and symbiotic. Gesina occasionally copied his paintings and was inspired by his work, while Gerard frequently used her as a model. They also appear to have collaborated on some pieces.

Gesina’s legacy

In Gesina’s later years, after the deaths of her beloved brothers Moses and Gerard, she largely stopped creating new works, instead focusing on teaching art to younger relatives and managing the family archive. She never married. When she died in 1690 at the age of 58, stewardship of her albums was left to her kinfolk. In 1886, after the death of her niece’s descendant Lambertus Theodorus Zebinden, the majority of Gesina’s archive went to auction and was acquired by the Rijksmuseum.

Gesina never planned for her work to go to a museum, but Eaker says he thinks she would feel gratified to know that her art lives on more than 300 years after her death.

“I really hope that she continues to be studied and treated as a major figure in her own right, not just a footnote in her brother’s story,” Eaker says. “And I hope that she also complicates our notion of women being deprived opportunities or being frustrated—that we can see what a rich and fulfilling career a 17th-century Dutch woman could have even working outside of the marketplace.”