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The Terrace
c. 1660
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 106.9 × 87.4 cm (42 1/16 × 34 3/8 in.); Framed: 128.9 × 109.2 × 5.4 cm (50 3/4 × 43 × 2 1/8 in.)
- Culture
- Delft
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Robert A. Waller Memorial Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
The military gear, musical instruments, and songbooks scattered throughout this composition hint at worldly and romantic pursuits, but the chief subject of the painting is the illusionism of the near and far objects framed by the window. Optical challenges were particularly intriguing to artists working in the Dutch city of Delft. This painting would have blurred the boundaries of indoor and outdoor when hung in a collector’s home.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
