Oil painting, 'Portrait of a Man in a Black Dress', attributed to Gerard ter Borch, late 1660s

A three-quarter profile portrait of an austerely black dressed man with a white collar set against a dark neutral background; he has red long hair and wears a thin moustache.

Bequeathed by John Forster

Bequeathed by John Forster, 1876
Extract from Parkinson, Ronald, Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860. Victoria & Albert Museum, HMSO, London, 1990. p.xix

John Forster (1812-1876) was born in Newcastle, the son of a cattle dealer. Educated at Newcastle Grammar School and University College London, he was a student in the Inner Temple 1828 and qualified as a barrister 1843. Began his career as a journalist as dramatic critic of the True Sun 1832; he later edited the Foreign Quarterly Review (1842-3), the Daily News (1846) and most famously the Examiner (1847-55). He was the author of numerous works, notably the Life and Adventures of Oliver Goldsmith (1848) and the Life of Charles Dickens (1872-4). He bequeathed his extensive collection of books, pamphlets, manuscripts, prints, drawings, watercolours and oil paintings to the V&A.
See also South Kensington Museum Art Handbooks. The Dyce and Forster Collections. With Engravings and Facsimiles. Published for the Committee of Council on Education by Chapman and Hall, Limited, 193, Piccadilly, London. 1880. Chapter V. Biographical Sketch of Mr. Forster. pp.53-73, including 'Portrait of Mr. Forster' illustrated opposite p.53.

Historical significance: His refined genre scenes and portraits established Gerard Ter Borch as one of the most prominent Dutch painters of the 17th century. He was born in Zwolle but trained in Haarlem with the landscape painter Pieter de Molijn with whom he then collaborated for some time before travelling throughout Europe. In 1654 he settled permanently in Deventer where he developed a new style of portraiture: small-scale portrait paintings that feature straightforwardly presented half-length and later full-length figures placed in a neutral setting.
Originally thought to be a self-portrait, this idea has since then been denied by comparison with the genuine self-portrait in the Maurithsuis Museum, The Hague, ca. 1668. It is most likely a portrait of a Deventer's gentleman, one among the many commissions that Ter Borch received throughout his career. Nearly half of Ter Borch's paintings focusing on human beings are portraits. About 60 of these works have survived, of which 22 can be related to specific sitters. This portrait represents the ideal of gentlemanly decorum that valued above all moderation following the ideas spread by Calvinist and Puritan theologians during this period in Holland. The sitter's black outfit was however highly fashionable and does not only correspond to a mere convention of puritanical sobriety.
This portrait is a typical example of Ter Borch's late 1660s production and can be compared with similar portraits of men of the same period such as Portrait of a man, Indianapolis Museum of Art or Portrait of a young man, Wallraft-Richartz Museum, Cologne.

Portraits and landscapes were pursued more than any other type of paintings throughout the 17th century in Holland. A great majority of these were commissioned by well-to-do citizens, whether prosperous merchants and professionals, or members of the city patriciates. Two cities were at the forefront at the turning of the 1630s: Amsterdam and The Hague. Amsterdam had the widest choice of painters and the greatest demand for portraiture. Thomas de Keyser (1596/97-1667) contributed to develop an innovative thrust in portraiture with the production of small- scale group portraits set in domestic interiors. Helst had a great influence on Amsterdam portraiture from 1640s together with other prominent painters such as Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), Jacob Adriaensz. Backer (1608-1651), Govaert Teunisz. Flinck (1615-1660), a pupil of Rembrandt, and Ferdinand Bol (1616-1680). The particular portrait type that Ter Borch created in Deventer little spread elsewhere and in Amsterdam and western Dutch cities, an alternative portrait type flourished, following the trend developed by Rubens' student Van Dyck, originated at the English court and later adapted to Dutch needs. It inspired such artists as Nicolaes Maes, Michiel van Musscher, and Ter Borch's own students Caspar Netscher.

Gerard Ter Borch (1617-1681) was first trained by his father Gerard Ter Borch the Elder before going to Amsterdam in 1634 as an apprentice to the landscape painter Pieter Molijn (1595-1661). He joined the Haarlem Guild of St Luke in 1635 and soon went travelling in Europe until the early 1640s. He then moved to Deventer where he settled definitively at the end of the 1640s. He made few historical subjects and produced chiefly scenes of everyday life including scenes of skaters, soldiers and markets, high-life interior subjects and portraits. His genre paintings had a considerable influence on such contemporaries as Gabriel Metsu, Pieter de Hooch, Frans van Mieris and Johannes Vermeer. He had many pupils among which the most eminent was Caspar Netscher and his oeuvre was extensively copied.

This small scale portrait showing a refined gentleman, most likely one of Deventer's burgomasters, is a typical example of Ter Borch's late 1660s production. He became the leading portraitist of the city's elite citizenry and had a prolific output that explained the number of now anonymous portraits commissioned at the time by respectful and renowned citizens.

F.35