Gerrit Dou (; 7 April 1613 – 9 February 1675), also known as Gerard Douw or Dow, was a
Dutch Golden Age painter, whose small, highly polished paintings are typical of the
Leiden fijnschilders. He specialised in
genre scenes and is noted for his ''
trompe-l'œil'' "niche" paintings and candlelit night-scenes with strong
chiaroscuro
In art, chiaroscuro ( , ; ) is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to ach ...
. He was a student of
Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (; ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), mononymously known as Rembrandt was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and Drawing, draughtsman. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in ...
.
Life

Dou was born in
Leiden
Leiden ( ; ; in English language, English and Archaism, archaic Dutch language, Dutch also Leyden) is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Nethe ...
, where his father was a manufacturer of stained-glass.
[Baer, p.28] He studied drawing under
Bartholomeus Dolendo, and then trained in the stained-glass workshop of Pieter Couwenhorn. In February 1628, at the age of fourteen, his father sent him to study painting in the studio of
Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (; ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), mononymously known as Rembrandt was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and Drawing, draughtsman. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in ...
(then aged about 21) who lived nearby.
[ From Rembrandt, with whom he remained for about three years, he acquired his skill in colouring and in the more subtle effects of ]chiaroscuro
In art, chiaroscuro ( , ; ) is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to ach ...
, and his master's style is reflected in several of his earlier pictures, notably a self-portrait at the age of 22, around 1635–1638, in the Bridgewater Collection, and in the ''Blind Tobit going to meet his Son'', at Wardour Castle ocations may be outdated
At a comparatively early point in his career, however, he developed a distinctive manner of his own which diverged considerably from Rembrandt's, cultivating a minute and elaborate style of treatment. He is said to have spent five days in painting a hand, and his work was so fine that he found it necessary to manufacture his own brushes.
Notwithstanding the minuteness of his touch, the general effect was harmonious and free from stiffness, and his colour was always fresh and transparent. He often represented subjects in lantern or candle light, the effects of which he reproduced with an unparalleled fidelity and skill. He often painted with the aid of a concave lens combined with a convex mirror (the former sharpening perception, the latter providing a rightway-up image to paint from), and to obtain exactness looked at his subject through a frame crossed with squares of silk thread. His practice as a portrait painter, which was at first considerable, gradually declined, sitters being unwilling to give him the time that he deemed necessary. His pictures were always small in size. More than 200 are attributed to him, and examples are to be found in most of the major public collections of Europe. His ''chef-d'oeuvre'' is generally considered to be '' The Dropsical Woman'' (1663), and '' The Dutch Housewife'' (1650), both in the Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...
. The ''Evening School'', in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, is the best example of the candlelight scenes in which he excelled. In the National Gallery, London, favorable specimens are to be seen in the '' Poulterer's Shop'' (1672), and a self-portrait (see above). Dou's pictures brought high prices, and one patron, Pieter Spiering, who acted as Swedish Ambassador in The Hague from the mid-1630s, paid him 500 guilders annually simply for the right of first refusal of his latest works. Queen Christina of Sweden owned eleven paintings by Dou, and Cosimo III de' Medici visited his house, where he may have bought at least one of the works now in the Uffizi. The Dutch royal court itself, however, preferred work of a more classical tendency.
Dou died in Leiden. His most noted pupils were Frans van Mieris the Elder and Gabriël Metsu. He also taught Bartholomeus Maton, Carel de Moor, Matthijs Naiveu, Abraham de Pape, Godfried Schalcken, Pieter Cornelisz van Slingelandt, Domenicus van Tol, Gijsbert Andriesz Verbrugge, and Pieter Hermansz Verelst.
File:Self-portrait by Gerrit Dou.jpg, ''Self-portrait'', 1635–1638, Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum
File:Gerard Dou - Painter in his Studio - WGA06642.jpg, ''The Painter in his Studio'', 1647 Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister
File:Gerard Dou - Self-Portrait - WGA06660.jpg, ''Self-portrait'', , Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
The Rijksmuseum () is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museumplein, Museum Square in the stadsdeel, borough of Amsterdam-Zuid, Amsterdam South, ...
File:Gérard Dou.jpg, ''Self-Portrait'' Louvre
Interpretation
A considerable amount was written about Dou in his own lifetime; for instance, Philips Angels praises Dou in his ''Lof der Schilderkunst'' for his imitation of nature and his visual illusions. Angels also stresses how Dou's paintings expressed the paragone debate current around that time. The debate was an ongoing competition between painting, sculpture and poetry as to which was the best representation of nature. It was especially popular in Leiden where the painters were seeking to obtain the rights of a guild from the town council in order to have laws for their economic protection.
The paragone debate is not only addressed in writings from that time but is also reflected in the subject matter of several of Dou's paintings. An example of this is the ''Old Painter at work'', in which an old painter is shown working on a canvas behind a table displaying objects that show his capabilities of imitation. The aged painter refers to an argument in the paragone debate that a painter can achieve his best work at an old age, while a sculptor cannot because of the physical demands of sculpting. On the table, a sculptured head and a printed book are rendered in a lifelike fashion to show that painting can imitate both sculpture and printed paper, thereby reinforcing the notion that painting trumps sculpture. According to Sluijter, the "amazing true-to-life peacock and a beautiful Triton shell, next to a copper pot with the most refined reflections of light" show that art beats nature. Sluijter argues that the peacock stands for the ability of painting to "preserve the transient works of nature thereby even surpassing it". luijter, 2000
Difficulties arise when an artist wants to associate a certain meaning with a specific object. One of the most troublesome and thus one of the most instructive objects in Dou's oeuvre is a relief by François Duquesnoy called ''Putti Teasing a Goat''. This relief features in many of Dou's pictures with a window-sill motif, and has been assigned various meanings. J. A. Emmens, for example, states that in ''The Trumpeter'' the relief represents "the deceitfulness of human desires, because the goat, personifying lust, can time and again be deceived by appearance, by the deceptive imitation, which is the mask". mmens, Opstellen, cit. (note 4), vol. 2, p 183 in Hecht, 2002
''The Kitchen Maid with a Boy in a Window'' features a maidservant, fish and a little boy holding a hare, cramped together with a bunch of vegetables, a dead bird and copperware. Sluijter acknowledges that a contemporary viewer would have certainly approved of this scene as representing an approximation of life since the rendering of all the material is very realistic. On the overall series of maidservant-scenes, Sluijter remarks that the image of a maidservant was generally associated with a sexual undertone. According to de Jongh, this motif has erotic references. In his article on Erotica
Erotica is art, literature or photography that deals substantively with subject matter that is erotic, sexually stimulating or sexually arousing. Some critics regard pornography as a type of erotica, but many consider it to be different. Erot ...
in 17th-century genre pieces, de Jongh argues that dead hunted birds and animals most likely all refer to the notion of eroticism and availability of the woman depicted because birding and hunting were synonyms for sexual encounters. All images of maidservants accompanied by dead birds or animals refer to hunting and ''vogelen'' (birding), which in Dutch means to copulate. The maidservants are thereby explicitly erotic. Certainly, a cock as a bird refers to a cock as the male sex organ and this can be seen hanging from the wall in ''Kitchen Maid with a Boy in a Window''. e Jongh, 1968–1969De Jongh´s erotic interpretations can be disputed regarding the paintings by Gerard Dou because he depicts his dead chicks and furry hares not only with seductive maidservants but also as props in motifs with old servants, or in domestic household scenes, such as '' The Young Mother'' (1658).
Additionally, to objects possibly having a deeper meaning via emblem book
An emblem book is a book collecting emblems (allegorical illustrations) with accompanying explanatory text, typically morals or poems. This category of books was popular in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Emblem books are collection ...
s, complete scenes in Dou's oeuvre have been related to scenes depicted in emblem books or prints. The ''Girl Pouring Water'' is a variation of the theme ''Educatio prima bona sit'' from Boissards ''Vesuntini emblemata''. This emblem depicts the moral that "children absorb knowledge like a pot absorbs water". The gaining of knowledge is represented by a little boy standing in the background while the water is poured in the foreground. ollander, 2002
One painting that is strongly associated with an emblem is the ''Night School''. This particular painting is rather anecdotal in character. Baer disagrees with Hecht who refers to this painting as being merely a demonstration of Dou's abilities to work with artificial light. Baer identifies the candle lights with the light of understanding, and she relates the unlit lantern on the left wall with ignorance, which is combated by teaching, represented by the lit lantern in the middle of the floor. Additionally, Baer suggests that the girl at the left is a representation of Cognitione because she strikes the same pose as in Cesare Ripa's ''Iconologia''. Like Ripa's emblem, the girl in Dou's painting holds a candle while pointing towards a line of text. The essence of Ripa's emblem is that "like our eyes, which need light to see, so our reason needs our senses, especially that of sight, to achieve true understanding". aer, 2001
Posthumous reputation
Dou's work commanded high prices long after his death, until the 1860s. Soon after, he fell into near complete obscurity.[Johnson, Paul. ''Art: A New History'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003.] For example, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...
in New York held in an exhibit to introduce Dutch art, it featured 37 by Rembrandt, 20 by Hals, but none by Dou. His obscurity continued until the 1970s when his reputation was reestablished and has continued since.
Works
*''The Night School'' ( Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...
)
*1628: ''Astronomer'' (Hermitage Museum
The State Hermitage Museum ( rus, Государственный Эрмитаж, r=Gosudarstvennyj Ermitaž, p=ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)ɨj ɪrmʲɪˈtaʂ, links=no) is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and holds the large ...
, Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...
)
*1631.1632 '' Old Woman Reading'' (formerly known as ''Rembrandt's Mother'') (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
*1630s: ''Portrait of a Girl'' (Manchester Art Gallery
Manchester Art Gallery, formerly Manchester City Art Gallery, is a publicly owned art museum on Mosley Street in Manchester city centre, England. The main gallery premises were built for a learned society in 1823 and today its collection occupi ...
, UK)
*1631: ''Prince Rupert'' ( J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
)
*1635–1636: ''Still Life with a Boy Blowing Soap-Bubbles'' (National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo
Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...
)
*1635–1640: ''Portrait of a Man'' (National Gallery, London)
*1637: ''An Interior with a Young Violinist'' (National Galleries of Scotland
The National Galleries of Scotland (, sometimes also known as National Galleries Scotland) is the executive non-departmental public body that controls the three national galleries of Scotland and two partner galleries, forming one of the Nation ...
)
*1640s: ''Portrait of a Young Woman'' (National Gallery, London)
*1640–1645: ''Portrait of a Man'' (Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg)
*1642–1647: ''St. Jerome in the Desert'' (Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester
The University of Rochester is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded in 1850 and moved into its current campus, next to the Genesee River in 1930. With approximately 30,000 full ...
, New York)
*1645: ''The Schoolmaster'' (Fitzwilliam Museum
The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities University museum, museum of the University of Cambridge. It is located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge. It was founded in 1816 under the will of Richard ...
, Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...
)
*1646: ''Girl Chopping Onions'' (Royal Collection
The Royal Collection of the British royal family is the largest private art collection in the world.
Spread among 13 occupied and historic List of British royal residences, royal residences in the United Kingdom, the collection is owned by King ...
, London)
*1647: ''Still Life With Book and Purse'' (J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles)
*1650: ''The Dutch Housewife'' (Louvre, Paris)
*1650s: ''The Young Mother'' ( Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
)
*1650s: ''Self Portrait'' (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
*1650s: ''Self-portrait at the Window'' ( Residenzgalerie, Salzburg
Salzburg is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020 its population was 156,852. The city lies on the Salzach, Salzach River, near the border with Germany and at the foot of the Austrian Alps, Alps moun ...
)
*1658-1665: ''Young Woman with a Lighted Candle at a Window'' ( Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid
Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...
)
*1652: '' The Quack Doctor'' ( Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam
Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...
)
*1653:'' The Physician'' ( Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, Christchurch
Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...
, New Zealand)
*1653: ''The Violin Player'' (Liechtenstein Palace, Vienna
Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
)
*1655: ''Old Woman Cutting Bread'' ( Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
)
*1655: ''Astronomer by Candlelight'' (J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles)
*1658: '' The Young Mother'' (Mauritshuis
The Mauritshuis (, ; ) is an art museum in The Hague, Netherlands. The museum houses the Royal Cabinet of Paintings which consists of 854 objects, mostly Dutch Golden Age paintings. The collection contains works by Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt van ...
, The Hague
The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...
)
*1660s: '' The Nursery'' (Lost with the sinking of the Vrouw Maria in 1771)
*1660–1665: ''Dentist by Candlelight'' (Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth)
*1660–1665: ''Old Woman Unreeling Threads'' (Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg)
*1660–1665: ''Soldier Bather'' (Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg)
*1660-1665: ''Woman Bather'' (Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg)
*1660-1665: ''Self-portrait'' (Louvre, Paris)
*1661: '' A Hermit'' (Wallace Collection
The Wallace Collection is a museum in London occupying Hertford House in Manchester Square, the former townhouse (Great Britain), townhouse of the Seymour family, Marquess of Hertford, Marquesses of Hertford. It is named after Sir Richard Wall ...
, London)
*1663: '' The Dropsical Woman'' (Louvre, Paris)
*1663: ''Woman at a Window with a Copper Bowl of Apples and a Cock Pheasant'' (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge)
*1665: ''A Lady playing a Clavichord'' ( Dulwich Picture Gallery, London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
)
*1670: ''A Hermit Praying'' ( Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota
Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...
)
*1670: ''The Hermit'' ( National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.)
*1670s: ''A Poulterer's Shop'' (National Gallery, London)
*1670–75: ''The Herring Seller'' (Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg)
*''Self Portrait'' (National Gallery, London)
*''Portrait of a Young Man'' (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge)
*''Evening Light'' (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
*''Young Man'' (The Hague)
*''The Cook'' (Louvre, Paris)
*''The Spinner'' (Gala-Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (11 May 190423 January 1989), known as Salvador Dalí ( ; ; ), was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, ...
Foundation)
*''The Spinning Reel'' ( Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco)
*''The Reader'' (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco)
*''Portrait of an Unknown Gentleman'' (Museum of Fine Arts at the University of Montana
The University of Montana (UM) is a public research university in Missoula, Montana, United States. UM is a flagship institution of the Montana University System and its second largest campus. Fall 2024 saw total enrollment hit 10,811, marki ...
, Missoula
Missoula ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Missoula County, Montana, Missoula County, Montana, United States. It is located along the Clark Fork River near its confluence with the Bitterroot River, Bitterroot and Blackfoot River (Montana), ...
)
*''Dog at Rest'' (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
File:Gerard Dou - Reading the Bible - WGA06644.jpg, ''Reading the Bible'', c. 1645, Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...
File:Gerard Dou - The Grocer's Shop - WGA06636.jpg, ''The Grocer's Shop'', 1647, Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...
File:Gerrit Dou - De Hollandse huisvrouw.jpg, ''Dutch Housewife'', 1650, Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...
File:Gerard Dou - Violon Player - WGA06663.jpg, ''Violon Player'', 1653, Liechtenstein Museum
File:The Doctor 1653 Gerard Dou.jpg, '' The Physician'', 1653, Kunsthistorisches Museum
The Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien ( "Vienna Museum of art history, Art History", often referred to as the "Museum of Fine Arts, Vienna") is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on the Vienna Ring Road, i ...
, Vienna
File:Gerard Dou 006.jpg, '' The Young Mother'', 1658, Mauritshuis
The Mauritshuis (, ; ) is an art museum in The Hague, Netherlands. The museum houses the Royal Cabinet of Paintings which consists of 854 objects, mostly Dutch Golden Age paintings. The collection contains works by Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt van ...
File:Gerrit Dou, Haringverkoopster met jongen.jpg, ''Haringverkoopster met jongen'', 1664, Leiden Collection
File:Een kluizenaar Rijksmuseum SK-C-128.jpeg, ''A Hermit'', 1664, Rijksmuseum
File:Gerard Dou - Girl with a Candle at a Window 1930.21 joven-ventana-vela.jpg, ''Girl with a Candle at a Window'', between 1658 and 1665, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid
File:Gerard Dou - Woman Peeling Carrot - WGA06634.jpg, ''Woman Peeling Carrot''
File:Gerrit Dou - Scholar sharpening a quill pen.jpg, ''Scholar sharpening a quill pen'', 1633, Leiden Collection
File:Gerard Dou- Woman Eating Porridge-1637.jpg, ''Woman Eating Porridge'', , Private collection
File:Dou Old Woman Cutting Bread.png, ''Old Woman Cutting Bread'', , Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the list of largest art museums, 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 painting ...
File:Dou Stilleben.JPG, ''Still life'', , Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden
File:Gerard Dou - The Silver Ewer - WGA06648.jpg, ''The Silver Ewer'' , Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...
File:Gerard Dou - The Moneylender - WGA06649.jpg, ''The Moneylender'', , Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...
File:Young woman pouring water out of a jug, by Gerard Dou.jpg, ''Woman Pouring Water into a Jar'', from 1655 until 1665, Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...
File:Gerard Dou 008.jpg, ''A Young Woman at her Toilet'', 1667, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Cultural references
In Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac ( , more commonly ; ; born Honoré Balzac; 20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright. The novel sequence ''La Comédie humaine'', which presents a panorama of post-Napoleonic French life, is ...
's 1831 novel '' La Peau de chagrin'', the curiosity shop Raphaël de Valentin enters in the opening sequence contains, among other paintings, "a Gerald Dow which resembled a page of Sterne," and the old shopkeeper is compared to "Gerald Dow's ''Money-Changer''."
In the comic opera
Comic opera, sometimes known as light opera, is a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending and often including spoken dialogue.
Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a ne ...
''The Pirates of Penzance
''The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty'' is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, W. S. Gilbert. Its official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 3 ...
'', by Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900) and to the works they jointly created. The two men collaborated on fourteen com ...
, the Major-General brags of being able to distinguish works by Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), now generally known in English as Raphael ( , ), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of paintings by Raphael, His work is admired for its cl ...
from works by Dou and Johan Zoffany.
Dou (as "Gerard Douw") is a character in J. Sheridan Le Fanu's short story "Schalken the Painter". In the 1979 BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
television adaptation of this work, '' Schalcken the Painter'', he was played by Maurice Denham.
Dou is portrayed on film by Toby Jones
Toby Edward Heslewood Jones''Births, Marriages & Deaths Index of England & Wales, 1916–2005.''; at ancestry.com (born 7 September 1966) is an English actor. He is known for his extensive character actor roles on stage and screen. From 1989 ...
in '' Nightwatching'' (2007).
W. F. Harvey's short story "Old Masters" features a picture by Dou (as Gerhard Dow) as the subject of an ingenious scam. (The story is included in the 2009 Wordsworth Edition omnibus collection of Harvey's stories, "The Beast with Five Fingers".)
A group of boys in Mary Mapes Dodge's ''Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates'' visit a museum in Amsterdam and see two paintings by "Gerard Douw", "The Hermit" and "Evening School."
In the 2023 film, “ The Little Mermaid” Dou’s painting, Astronomer by Candlelight, is featured as a page in a book which the mermaid, Ariel, flips though while singing “ Part of Your World”.
References
Sources
*
*
Gerrit Dou (1613–1675): Master Painter in the Age of Rembrandt at the National Gallery of Art
External links
*
Works and literature
Oldandsold.com
Vermeer and The Delft School
a full text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has material on Gerrit Dou
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dou, Gerard
1613 births
1675 deaths
Dutch Golden Age painters
Dutch male painters
Trompe-l'œil artists
Painters from Leiden
Burials at Pieterskerk, Leiden
Pupils of Rembrandt