Staande vrouw en schetsen van een kind c. 1661 - 1669

Gesina ter Borch made this drawing, "Standing Woman and Sketches of a Child," with pen and brown ink. Though undated, ter Borch was active in the Dutch Republic in the mid-17th century, a period of immense cultural and economic growth for the Netherlands. The drawing's setting seems to be a domestic one. Yet, it is hardly a straightforward illustration of daily life. Ter Borch was unmarried and lived at home, so we might ask whether this image comments on the social structures of her time. Was it self-consciously conservative or progressive? We might consider how the institutions of art themselves shaped women's artmaking. It's important to recognize the relative invisibility of women artists in art history. Scholarly resources such as artist biographies, exhibition catalogs, and collections databases help us research artists whose work might otherwise be overlooked. The meaning of art is contingent on its social and institutional context, as this drawing shows.