# The Music Lesson

- By: Gerard ter Borch the Younger (Dutch, 1617-1681)
- Date: c. 1670
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: 63.6 × 50.4 cm (25 × 19 7/8 in.); Framed: 84.8 × 70.8 × 6.4 cm (33 3/8 × 27 7/8 × 2 1/2 in.)
- Culture: Netherlands
- Credit line: Gift of Charles T. Yerkes
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/512)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/d55ad474-aa3c-6881-b10d-06a9ac6e05b7/full/!1920,1080/0/default.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

In this small-scale scene of everyday life, a woman plays the double-headed lute as her companion marks the tempo. He is presumably her music instructor, but the similarity in their ages and the presence of the bed in the background make the precise relationship of the figures tantalizingly ambiguous. Gerard ter Borch the Younger painted many images like this one, featuring military officers and elegant young women in shimmering satin conversing, making music, or exchanging letters.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0