Gerard Dou (1613-1675) was in his day a highly popular and prosperous
painter of petty tragedies. As a boy of fifteen he entered the studio
of “the skilled and far-famed Mr. Rembrandt,” who was, however, his
senior by only seven years. One is apt to tire of his irritating
parade of cleverness in the manipulation of light and shade effects,
and over-scrupulous and niggling treatment of detail. Yet it is these
very qualities that brought him financial success when in later life
Rembrandt was receiving scanty treatment at the hands of the art
patrons of Holland. The _Dentist_ (No. 2355) is an early work. Dou’s
_Portrait of an Old Lady_ (No. 2358) is now held to be a _Portrait of
Rembrandt’s Mother_, and is regarded as the companion picture to the
_Old Man Reading_ (No. 2567), by Dou’s pupil, Godfried Schalcken. The
_Grocer’s Shop_ (No. 2350), which has been, with needless precision,
“ranked about the seventh best of this master’s productions,” is signed
in full on the slate, and dated 1647 on the mortar, while the _Cook
with a Dead Cock_ (No. 2353) is signed on the window-sill, and dated
1650.
[Illustration:
PLATE XXXII.—GERARD DOU
(1613-1675)