A Woman playing a Lute to Two Men
- Artist: Gerard ter Borch
- Date: about 1667-8
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Museum: The National Gallery
- Collection record: The National Gallery website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is "A Woman playing a Lute to Two Men" painted in the Dutch north. It's about 1667-8 and made of oil on canvas. The artist here, Gerard ter Borch, was really skilled at capturing textures of fabrics - check out the sheen on the lutenist's satin jacket and dress compared to the matt weave of that beautiful Turkish carpet.
The scene shows a young woman playing the lute with two men seated opposite her. But what's going on here? They're not obviously flirting, their body language is neutral, but there are a few clues that might tempt us towards a particular conclusion. See the bed in the background - perhaps it's on the minds of the protagonists.
And take a look at the card on the floor under the table: the ace of spades. Card games were often associated with vice and seduction. Ter Borch used elements he'd used before to compose this painting - that spaniel appears in several of his works, for example. So what is going on here? Is it a respectable gathering or something more... complicated? The inscrutable expressions of the musicians leave us wondering.
See it in person
A Woman playing a Lute to Two Men hangs in The National Gallery on Trafalgar Square, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
