The Spinner

The Spinner from 1650 by Gerard ter Borch depicts a woman at her spinning wheel, one of the domestic genre subjects for which the artist was famous. Ter Borch's genre scenes of Dutch domestic life were admired for their refined execution and quiet, contemplative mood. Ter Borch's extraordinary ability to render silk, satin, and velvet with a tactile reality unsurpassed in Dutch Golden Age painting made him the supreme painter of the Dutch upper middle class, his small elegant panels providing the definitive image of prosperous seventeenth-century society.

The domestic scene is rendered with ter Borch's characteristic refinement, the spinning woman absorbed in her work within a quietly lit interior.