.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Gerrit Dou, much like his master Rembrandt, was among the most successful Dutch artists of the seventeenth century. His remarkable technique, refined pictorial language and comparatively restricted output ensured that his paintings commanded princely sums in his own lifetime. Dou’s patrons included Cosimo III de’ Medici, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria and the Dutch States General (who acquired three paintings as gifts for Charles II upon his accession to the English throne in 1660), while Pieter Spiering, envoy of the Swedish crown to The Hague, parted with five hundred guilders annually simply for the right of first refusal of his paintings. The unwavering interest in Dou’s paintings in the centuries that followed is admirably confirmed by this example, whose nineteenth-century owners included some of the greatest British collectors of their day: Edmund Higginson, Adrian John Hope and William Proby, 5th Earl of Carysfort, in whose family it has remained until the present day. The painting’s re-emergence on the market for the first time in well over a century offers a new generation of collectors the opportunity to acquire an early masterpiece by an artist whose protean ability with the brush mesmerises viewers today just as it did connoisseurs some four centuries ago.
We are grateful to Dr. Ronni Baer, Allen R. Adler, Class of 1967, Distinguished Curator and Lecturer, Princeton University Art Museum, for compiling the following entry.
The pictorial theme of the half-length musician was introduced into the Northern Netherlands by the Utrecht Caravaggisti in the early 1620s. For example, Hendrick ter Brugghen painted two images of flute players, now in Kassel, in 1621. Dou transformed his more theatrical representations into a contemporary bourgeois image, while keeping a few exuberant touches (like the exotic bird-of-paradise feathers attached to the flute player’s beret, which also appear in a nearly contemporary painting of a Man Dressed in ‘Oriental’ Costume by his compatriot, Jan Lievens). Dou’s male musicians invariably play either wind or string instruments, while his women play keyboards. Although musical instruments appear as still-life elements in a number of the artist’s early works, The Flute Player seems to be his earliest representation of a musician. Flutes were often associated with pastoral figures and enjoyed a lower status than stringed instruments, perhaps because of the facial distortions that resulted from blowing into the instrument. The subject of Dou’s painting seems to refer to more elevated concerns. Music could be appreciated as both a liberal art and one of life’s sensual pleasures. However, with the inclusion of the obvious vanitas symbols of hourglass and violin (whose musical strains are fleeting), and globes and books (indicative of man’s earthly endeavours and achievements), the painting may also have been meant to evoke the transience of human life, a leitmotif in several of Dou’s paintings. Indeed, vanitas themes were particularly popular in Dou’s hometown of Leiden throughout the seventeenth century.
The colour scheme; the broad, unmodulated execution of the table covering; and the finicky rendition of the fur of the youth’s tabard are characteristic of Dou’s early style. However, while placed in a less spacious interior, The Flute Player has the same mise-en-scène as the Old Man Lighting a Pipe (fig. 1; private collection, England; Baer, op. cit., 2000, no. 5), including the placement of the figure in front of a window with a deep embrasure, and the background curtain pulled aside and attached to a column (with an ovolo) to reveal shelves with books, a water bottle and globe. Both paintings also feature a violin and an additional globe on a stand on the nearby table. Because many of these accessories appear in several of Dou’s early paintings, they must have been studio props. The terrestrial globe, with the word ‘MARE’ easily identifiable, was similarly depicted in the Still Life with Globe, Lute and Books (Baer 2000, op. cit., no. 6). By including all manner of objects in his work, Dou purposely called attention to his ability to employ his fine brushwork to depict a great variety of materials, textures and reflections. This technique, a defining characteristic of his signature style, would make his paintings among the most highly prized in the seventeenth century.
The setting of The Flute Player is also similar to that depicted in the Scholar Interrupted at his Writing (fig. 2; New York, Leiden Collection; Baer, op. cit., 2000, no. 4). The figures in both paintings wear a fur-trimmed tabard, a garment often worn by scholars in their studies to mitigate the cold and dampness. While Dou achieved a subtle play of light on the musician’s face, his expert rendering of chiaroscuro and a more accomplished depiction of fur in the Scholar Interrupted argue that it dates somewhat later than our painting. Since Rembrandt’s print of Jan Uytenbogaert, dated 1635, provides a terminus ante quem for the Scholar, I would propose a date of circa 1632-35 for The Flute Player. This is somewhat earlier than the date indicated in the Elton Hall catalogue of 1936 (op. cit.) and the Royal Academy exhibition catalogue of 1938 (op. cit.), both of which record the painting being signed and dated 1636. However, the date on the pages of the closed book on the table can no longer be read. A number of painted details found in The Flute Player, including the column, the same sitter and many of the objects, would reappear in Dou’s Young Viola Player of 1637 (fig. 3; Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland; Baer op. cit., 2000, no.8). Martin suggested that the youth is Dou himself (op. cit., 1907), while Bodkin identified him as Dou’s fellow artist, Quirijn van Brekelenkam (op. cit.). There is no evidence to support either suggestion.
At the time of the 1828 Amsterdam sale, the panel retained its original oval format. By the time it featured in the Jan Kleinenbergh sale of 1841 in Leiden, it was listed as ‘toegegewijze’, or with an arched top. This change, which evidently took place between 1828 and 1841, may have been effected to recall the shape of the much-esteemed Young Viola Player in Edinburgh. Recent dendrochronological examination of our painting shows that Dou’s original oval panel originated from the same tree as the central board in the Scholar at a Table with Books and a Candlestick (‘The Old Rabbi’) by an artist in Rembrandt’s circle at the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest (inv. no. 235), which had an earliest possible felling date of 1624, though probably 1630 or after (see J. Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, III, Dordrecht, Boston and London, 1989, p. 588, under no. C 91). The backing panel with horizontal grain used to enlarge the painting to its current format is also of seventeenth-century origin, although it would only have been available for use after 1660 (a full report from Ian Tyers is available upon request). Infrared reflectography (IRR) confirms that the additions, including the chair legs and most of the lower part of the table covering, are painted in entirely different pigments. It also reveals that Dou made broad indications in underpaint of, for example, the location of the boy’s facial features, the outlines of his body, the shadows on his jacket and the position of the books. He also initially sketched in several still-life elements that were positioned on the front part of the table but were subsequently suppressed; these appear to have included a pen case as in the Scholar Interrupted and a coal pan as in the Old Man Lighting a Pipe and the Young Viola Player. Furthermore, he made numerous adjustments to the objects on the shelves behind the young man (fig. 4).
Whereas the scholar in the Leiden Collection panel looks out at the viewer as though interrupted at his writing, the musician plays his transverse flute as if for us. As in many of his works, Dou’s sitter acknowledges the viewer’s presence, addressing him or her directly. This direct engagement between viewer and subject set Dou’s work apart from that of many of his contemporaries. About ten years later, Dou painted another flute player, this time in three-quarter profile and playing a recorder, with a music book open on the table beside him (Innsbruck, Ferdinandeum, stolen in 2001 and presumably destroyed; Baer, op. cit., 1990, no. 37). He, too, has a feather in his cap (albeit a different type) and is dressed in contemporary fashion. But the tiny oval image of a recorder player is only about music-making; the painting is notable for the atmosphere of absorption and the simplicity of its design.
The large open book turned towards the viewer in The Flute Player, along with the other objects discussed above, signal that Dou’s intended meaning here is different. The book’s illustration depicts Tobias curing his father of blindness. Its composition is related to, though in reverse of, a Rembrandt School painting of the subject datable to circa 1636 in the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart (inv. no. 2521). The Book of Tobit has been aptly described as ‘one of the greatest scriptural examples of piousness and complete confidence in God’s unfailing wisdom’ (J. Held, Rembrandt’s Aristotle and other Rembrandt Studies, Princeton, 1969, p. 118). The chapter heading above the illustration seems to read ‘Hoe de priesters dienst’ (How the priests serve), though the last word of the rubric is a palimpsest (or has been damaged) and is difficult to read. The book is very similar to the one held by Dou’s Old Woman Reading (fig. 5; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum; Baer, op. cit., 2000, no. 2), which has been identified as a Catholic lectionary (see H.-M. Rotermund, ‘Rembrandts Bibel,’ Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, VIII, 1957, pp. 134-138; D. Vance Smith has recently corroborated this idea and suggested it could be a service book with lectionary, which included the Reform liturgy and the Psalms [private communication with the author, 16 October 2025]). By turning away from the book, is the young musician indicating his preference for the sensual over the pious life, for luxury over simplicity? The meaning of the book in the context of the painting remains to be deciphered.
We are grateful to Dr. Ronni Baer, Allen R. Adler, Class of 1967, Distinguished Curator and Lecturer, Princeton University Art Museum, for compiling the following entry.
The pictorial theme of the half-length musician was introduced into the Northern Netherlands by the Utrecht Caravaggisti in the early 1620s. For example, Hendrick ter Brugghen painted two images of flute players, now in Kassel, in 1621. Dou transformed his more theatrical representations into a contemporary bourgeois image, while keeping a few exuberant touches (like the exotic bird-of-paradise feathers attached to the flute player’s beret, which also appear in a nearly contemporary painting of a Man Dressed in ‘Oriental’ Costume by his compatriot, Jan Lievens). Dou’s male musicians invariably play either wind or string instruments, while his women play keyboards. Although musical instruments appear as still-life elements in a number of the artist’s early works, The Flute Player seems to be his earliest representation of a musician. Flutes were often associated with pastoral figures and enjoyed a lower status than stringed instruments, perhaps because of the facial distortions that resulted from blowing into the instrument. The subject of Dou’s painting seems to refer to more elevated concerns. Music could be appreciated as both a liberal art and one of life’s sensual pleasures. However, with the inclusion of the obvious vanitas symbols of hourglass and violin (whose musical strains are fleeting), and globes and books (indicative of man’s earthly endeavours and achievements), the painting may also have been meant to evoke the transience of human life, a leitmotif in several of Dou’s paintings. Indeed, vanitas themes were particularly popular in Dou’s hometown of Leiden throughout the seventeenth century.
The colour scheme; the broad, unmodulated execution of the table covering; and the finicky rendition of the fur of the youth’s tabard are characteristic of Dou’s early style. However, while placed in a less spacious interior, The Flute Player has the same mise-en-scène as the Old Man Lighting a Pipe (fig. 1; private collection, England; Baer, op. cit., 2000, no. 5), including the placement of the figure in front of a window with a deep embrasure, and the background curtain pulled aside and attached to a column (with an ovolo) to reveal shelves with books, a water bottle and globe. Both paintings also feature a violin and an additional globe on a stand on the nearby table. Because many of these accessories appear in several of Dou’s early paintings, they must have been studio props. The terrestrial globe, with the word ‘MARE’ easily identifiable, was similarly depicted in the Still Life with Globe, Lute and Books (Baer 2000, op. cit., no. 6). By including all manner of objects in his work, Dou purposely called attention to his ability to employ his fine brushwork to depict a great variety of materials, textures and reflections. This technique, a defining characteristic of his signature style, would make his paintings among the most highly prized in the seventeenth century.
The setting of The Flute Player is also similar to that depicted in the Scholar Interrupted at his Writing (fig. 2; New York, Leiden Collection; Baer, op. cit., 2000, no. 4). The figures in both paintings wear a fur-trimmed tabard, a garment often worn by scholars in their studies to mitigate the cold and dampness. While Dou achieved a subtle play of light on the musician’s face, his expert rendering of chiaroscuro and a more accomplished depiction of fur in the Scholar Interrupted argue that it dates somewhat later than our painting. Since Rembrandt’s print of Jan Uytenbogaert, dated 1635, provides a terminus ante quem for the Scholar, I would propose a date of circa 1632-35 for The Flute Player. This is somewhat earlier than the date indicated in the Elton Hall catalogue of 1936 (op. cit.) and the Royal Academy exhibition catalogue of 1938 (op. cit.), both of which record the painting being signed and dated 1636. However, the date on the pages of the closed book on the table can no longer be read. A number of painted details found in The Flute Player, including the column, the same sitter and many of the objects, would reappear in Dou’s Young Viola Player of 1637 (fig. 3; Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland; Baer op. cit., 2000, no.8). Martin suggested that the youth is Dou himself (op. cit., 1907), while Bodkin identified him as Dou’s fellow artist, Quirijn van Brekelenkam (op. cit.). There is no evidence to support either suggestion.
At the time of the 1828 Amsterdam sale, the panel retained its original oval format. By the time it featured in the Jan Kleinenbergh sale of 1841 in Leiden, it was listed as ‘toegegewijze’, or with an arched top. This change, which evidently took place between 1828 and 1841, may have been effected to recall the shape of the much-esteemed Young Viola Player in Edinburgh. Recent dendrochronological examination of our painting shows that Dou’s original oval panel originated from the same tree as the central board in the Scholar at a Table with Books and a Candlestick (‘The Old Rabbi’) by an artist in Rembrandt’s circle at the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest (inv. no. 235), which had an earliest possible felling date of 1624, though probably 1630 or after (see J. Bruyn et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, III, Dordrecht, Boston and London, 1989, p. 588, under no. C 91). The backing panel with horizontal grain used to enlarge the painting to its current format is also of seventeenth-century origin, although it would only have been available for use after 1660 (a full report from Ian Tyers is available upon request). Infrared reflectography (IRR) confirms that the additions, including the chair legs and most of the lower part of the table covering, are painted in entirely different pigments. It also reveals that Dou made broad indications in underpaint of, for example, the location of the boy’s facial features, the outlines of his body, the shadows on his jacket and the position of the books. He also initially sketched in several still-life elements that were positioned on the front part of the table but were subsequently suppressed; these appear to have included a pen case as in the Scholar Interrupted and a coal pan as in the Old Man Lighting a Pipe and the Young Viola Player. Furthermore, he made numerous adjustments to the objects on the shelves behind the young man (fig. 4).
Whereas the scholar in the Leiden Collection panel looks out at the viewer as though interrupted at his writing, the musician plays his transverse flute as if for us. As in many of his works, Dou’s sitter acknowledges the viewer’s presence, addressing him or her directly. This direct engagement between viewer and subject set Dou’s work apart from that of many of his contemporaries. About ten years later, Dou painted another flute player, this time in three-quarter profile and playing a recorder, with a music book open on the table beside him (Innsbruck, Ferdinandeum, stolen in 2001 and presumably destroyed; Baer, op. cit., 1990, no. 37). He, too, has a feather in his cap (albeit a different type) and is dressed in contemporary fashion. But the tiny oval image of a recorder player is only about music-making; the painting is notable for the atmosphere of absorption and the simplicity of its design.
The large open book turned towards the viewer in The Flute Player, along with the other objects discussed above, signal that Dou’s intended meaning here is different. The book’s illustration depicts Tobias curing his father of blindness. Its composition is related to, though in reverse of, a Rembrandt School painting of the subject datable to circa 1636 in the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart (inv. no. 2521). The Book of Tobit has been aptly described as ‘one of the greatest scriptural examples of piousness and complete confidence in God’s unfailing wisdom’ (J. Held, Rembrandt’s Aristotle and other Rembrandt Studies, Princeton, 1969, p. 118). The chapter heading above the illustration seems to read ‘Hoe de priesters dienst’ (How the priests serve), though the last word of the rubric is a palimpsest (or has been damaged) and is difficult to read. The book is very similar to the one held by Dou’s Old Woman Reading (fig. 5; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum; Baer, op. cit., 2000, no. 2), which has been identified as a Catholic lectionary (see H.-M. Rotermund, ‘Rembrandts Bibel,’ Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, VIII, 1957, pp. 134-138; D. Vance Smith has recently corroborated this idea and suggested it could be a service book with lectionary, which included the Reform liturgy and the Psalms [private communication with the author, 16 October 2025]). By turning away from the book, is the young musician indicating his preference for the sensual over the pious life, for luxury over simplicity? The meaning of the book in the context of the painting remains to be deciphered.