Gerard Dou was born at Leyden on the 7th April 1613

Gerard Dou was born at Leyden on the 7th April 1613, died there 1680. He entered Rembrandt's school at fifteen years of age, and in three years had attained the position of an independent artist. He devoted himself at first to portraiture, and, like his master, made his own face frequently his subject. Afterwards he treated scenes from the life chiefly of the middle classes. He took particular pleasure in the representation of hermits; he also painted scriptural events and occasionally still life. His lighting is frequently that of lanterns and candles.Most of his pictures contain only from one to three figures,oil paintings for sale,and do not exceed about 2 ft. high and 1 ft. 3 in. wide, being often smaller. His pictures seldom attain even an animated moral import, and may be said to be limited usually to a certain kindliness of sentiment. On the other hand, he possessed a trace of his master's feeling for the picturesque, and for chiaroscuro. Notwithstanding the incalculable minuteness of his execution, the touch of his brush is free and soft,canvas paintings for sale,and his best pictures look like Nature seen through the camera-obscura. His works were so highly estimated in his own time, that the President van Spiring, at the Hague, offered him 1000 florins a year for the right of pre-emption of his pictures. Considering the time which such finish required, and the early age at which he died, the number of his pictures—Smith enumerates about 200—is remarkable. In the Louvre are the following:—An old woman seated at a window, reading the Bible to her husband; this is one of the best among the many representations by Dou of a similar kind, being of warm sunny effect, and marvellous finish. Also the Woman with the Dropsy, which is accounted hischef-d'œuvre. modern abstract oil painting