Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Gerard Terburg

TERBURG, Gerard (1608‒1681), subject painter, was born in 1608, at Zwolle, in the province of Overyssel, Holland, His father, also an artist, sent him to study in Rome, where he adopted a style distinguished by great finish and accuracy. He practised for a time in Paris with much success, visited England, it is said, and then returned to Holland. In 1648 he was at Münster during the meeting of the congress which ratified the treaty of peace between the Spaniards and the Dutch, and executed his celebrated little picture, painted upon copper, of the assembled plenipotentiaries,—a work which, along with the Guitar Lesson, now represents the master in the national collection in London. At this time Terburg was invited to visit Madrid, where he received employment and the honour of knighthood from Philip IV. It is said that, in consequence of an intrigue, he was obliged to return to Holland. He seems to have resided for a time in Haarlem; but he finally settled in Deventer, where he became a member of the town council, as which he appears in the portrait now in the gallery of The Hague. He died at Deventer in 1681.

Terburg is excellent as a portrait painter, but still greater as a painter of genre subjects. He depicts with admirable truth the life of the wealthy and cultured classes of his time, and his work is free from any touch of the grossness which finds so large a place in Dutch art. His figures are well drawn and expressive in attitude; his colouring is clear and rich; but his best skill lies in his unequalled rendering of texture in draperies, which is seen to advantage in such pictures as the Letter in the Dutch royal collection, and in the Paternal Advice (known as the Satin Gown)—engraved by Wille—which exists in various repetitions at Berlin and Amsterdam, and in the Bridgewater Gallery. Terburg’s works are rare; only about eighty have been catalogued.