The Drawing Lesson

An artist is teaching his pupil to draw by showing him some sculptures from classical antiquity. These include plaster casts of a Venus figure and the famous Spinario, a statue of a boy pulling a thorn from his foot. The candle that bathes the scene in a warm light is just visible behind the dark silhouette of the bust in the foreground.

The pronounced contrasts of light and shade are reminiscent of the Italian painter Caravaggio. Ter Borch trained in Utrecht where he probably encountered the work of the Utrecht Caravaggisti.