Works by Gerrit Dou
84 works · 112 ms
Gerrit Dou of Leiden, a pupil of Rembrandt, painted small, minutely finished panels, often of a figure framed by a stone window or lit by a candle.
At fourteen, in 1628, he entered the studio of Rembrandt, who lived nearby, and stayed about three years; fairly early on he worked out a minute, elaborate manner quite unlike his teacher's. One hand reportedly took him five days, and he made his own brushes. Old Woman Reading, once called Rembrandt's mother, is so exact that the page can be read: the opening of Luke 19.
In Man Smoking a Pipe a young man leans out of an arched window over an open book, while a green curtain on a copper rod seems to hang in front of the picture itself. Below the sill of A Poulterer's Shop runs a stone relief of children and a goat, seemingly the relief by François Duquesnoy that turns up in many of his window pictures. The paintings here are mostly portraits and everyday scenes, several of them self-portraits.
Sources: Wikidata, Wikipedia, National Gallery, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Rijksmuseum.
