© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Lady, Seated with a Music Book on Her Lap
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Portrait of a Lady, Seated with a MusicBook on Her Lap

ca. 1640–44
oil on panel
27.2 x 20 cm
signed in dark paint along book edge, lower right:“GDov” (GD in ligature)
GD-116Gerrit Dou(Leiden 1613 – 1675 Leiden)

How to cite
Surh, Dominique. “Portrait of a Lady, Seated with a Music Book on Her Lap” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue,3rded.

EditedbyArthurK.

WheelockJr.

andLaraYeager-Crasselt.

NewYork,

2020–23.

https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/ (archived December 2023).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed by apermanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Lady, Seated with a Music Book on Her Lap
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Gerrit Dou’s small-scale portrait of this well-to-do young lady conveys much about

Comparative Figures

her interests, values, and social class. Her tasteful jewelry and dress, as well as theopen music book in her lap, suggest that she comes from a wealthy family fromamong Leiden’s literate circles. Her elegant attire consists of a three-tiered white linen
neckerchief around her shoulders, with lace trim and matching lace cuffs that adorn
her bracelet-length sleeves. She wears a high-necked white collar with several thinstrands of gold beading, and an ornamental black stomacher accented with a bowfrom which hangs a single black pearl. This fashionable ensemble was current during
the early 1640s and was also worn by ladies in Haarlem and Amsterdam, as seen, forexample, in Frans Hals’s (1582/83–1666) Portrait of a Woman with a Fan of ca. 1640
in the National Gallery, London, and Rembrandt van Rijn’s (1606–69) Portrait ofAgatha Bas from 1642 in the British Royal Collection (fig 1).[1] Like Agatha Bas’s
fashionable dress, the ensemble of the present sitter features an amber-colored satin
skirt with gold embroidery that contrasts with her black outer gown. The scale of her

Fig 1. Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait ofAgatha Bas, 1641, oil on canvas, 105.5
x 83.9 cm, The Royal Collection,London, Royal Collection Trust, ©
2014 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

lacework is much less bold and her accessories less ostentatious than that of her
Haarlem and Amsterdam counterparts, indicating her more conservative taste. Inkeeping with her reserved demeanor, she wears her hair tied back in a traditional
hairdo with a matching lace headdress that covers her ears and extends to the sides ofher face.
Based on her dress style, Baer dates the present portrait to ca. 1640–44.[2] Anotherclosely related painting is Dou’s Portrait of a Lady (fig 2)[3]. In both of these works,
Dou situated the woman in a simple interior space near a table with books andsoftened the scene with a deep reddish-brown curtain hanging above and to the left ofthe sitter. The present painting also includes a staircase and column at the left, which
help to define the interior space of the room. The additional illumination from theleft of this column also creates a play of light and shadow along the back wall, against
which the lady is contrasted.
An X-radiograph indicates that the rectangular composition was initially conceived

Fig 2. Gerrit Dou, Portrait of a Lady,ca. 1635–40, oil on panel, 49.2 x 38.7
cm, The Norton Simon Foundation,
Pasadena, California, inv. no.
F.1969.43.P, © 2012 The Norton
Simon Foundation

with an arched top. The greater visibility of the arch along the upper right-hand sidecoincides with the direction of the light that falls onto this area and accounts for thegreater content of lead white in the underlying paint (fig 3). Pentimenti along thefigure’s face, right arm, and shoulder seen in the X-radiograph, moreover, indicatethat Dou initially positioned the sitter centrally beneath the painted arch and later
shifted her to the right by about one centimeter, possibly when he modified thearched-top format and added the curtain to balance the composition. A similar
combination is found in Dou’s Self-Portrait in a private collection in Spain, as well as
in his Painter with a Pipe and Book in the Rijksmuseum, both from about 1645.[4] The
conventional format of the present portrait suggests that the sitter was married and© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Lady, Seated with a Music Book on Her LapPage 4 of 8that Dou most likely originally painted her portrait with a male pendant, placing thewoman on the heraldic left. The ring on her left hand, which Dou executed with only
a few strokes of paint, is probably a wedding ring.[5]The books with which she is engaged suggest that she is a pious and educatedindividual. The ornamental clasp and gold detailing on the standing book on the table
are characteristic of a Bible, while the open music book on her lap, which she actively
thumbs as if to turn a page, indicates her proficiency in reading music. The musicalnotation of the book contains four staffs per page and is written with some beamed
eighth and sixteenth notes, which would have been typical of a secular piece. The
worn condition of the paint in this area, however, makes it impossible to determine
whether the musical notation was once an identifiable song.

Fig 3. X-radiograph of GD-116

The paint surface is even and smooth, with visibly raised thicker paint throughout theelaborate detail work and highlights. These areas include the ornamental lace trim of
the sitter’s collar, the golden brocade along the center of her skirt, and the sparsehighlights applied to her headdress as well as to the bindings of the books on thetable. Extremely fine brushstrokes, especially in the stray curly hairs framing thesitter’s face, indicate that the artist used a single, fine bristle for the application of thepaint (fig 4). Though Dou’s polished handling of the brushwork in this portrait
matches the refinement of the sitter, the treatment of her hair is reminiscent of theartist’s much looser handling of a peasant woman’s hair in the A Young Woman in

Fig 4. Detail of brushwork in thewoman’s hair and forehead, Portrait ofa Lady, Seated with a Music Book on
Her Lap, GD-116

Cleveland from about the same time (fig 5), a comparison that underscores the artist’sgreat versatility in brushwork depending on the formality of the subject matter.

- Domique Surh, 2017
Fig 5. Detail of brushwork in thewoman’s hair and forehead, GerritDou, A Young Woman, ca. 1640, oilon panel, 35 x 31 cm, The Cleveland
Museum of Art, Bequest of William
G. Mather, 1951.325© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Lady, Seated with a Music Book on Her Lap
Page 5 of 8Endnotes
1. See Marieke de Winkel, Fashion and Fancy: Dress and Meaning in Rembrandt’s Paintings (Amsterdam,2006).
2. Ronni Baer, “The Paintings of Gerrit Dou (1613–1675),” 3 vols. (PhD diss. New York University,1990), no. 34.
3. For the Norton Simon painting, see Ronni Baer, “The Paintings of Gerrit Dou (1613–1675),” 3 vols.
(PhD diss. New York University, 1990), no. 35; Amy Walsh, Northern European Paintings at the Norton
Simon Museum (New Haven, forthcoming), no. 20.
4. Illustrated in Ronni Baer, Gerrit Dou, 1613–1675: Master Painter in the Age of Rembrandt, ed. Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art; London, Dulwich Picture Gallery;
The Hague, Mauritshuis) (Washington D.C., 2000), nos. 14, 16; see also no. 7.
5. Eddy De Jongh, Portretten van echt en trouw (Zwolle, 1986), 138–40.

Provenance(Sale, D. de Jongh, Rotterdam, 26 March 1810, no. 28 [to Le Brun for 505 f.]; sale, Lebrun, Paris, 16
April 1811, no. 112 [to Ballatre for 1450 frs.]).
Sir George Hunter Donaldson (1845–1925), London, until 1911; [Sedelmeyer Gallery, Paris, 1911].
[Duits & Co., Ltd., London, by 1948, to Mr. R. A. Constantine, February 1948].
Mr. R. A. Constantine, Yorkshire, until after 1960.
[Martin B. Ascher, London, before 1970] (sale, Christie’s, London, 14 May 1971, no. 129, for 7500
gns., to A. Brod [Alfred Brod Gallery, London]).
Private collection, Germany [Charles Roelofsz, Amsterdam, 1982; Kunstandel P. de Boer, Amsterdam,1983; French & Company, New York, 1983–85].
H. L. de Villeneuve, by 1985 until 2009.
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2009.

Exhibition History
Middlesbrough, Municipal Art Gallery, “Exhibition of Dutch and Flemish Masters of the Sixteenth andSeventeenth Centuries,” 28 September–22 October 1949, no. 31 [lent by the Constantine family].
© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Lady, Seated with a Music Book on Her Lap
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Scarborough, Municipal Art Gallery, “Dutch and Flemish Masters from the Collection of Mrs. R. A.
Constantine and Family,” June 1960, no. 28 [lent by the Constantine family].
Norfolk, Virginia, Chrysler Museum of Art, on loan with the permanent collection, June 2009–July
2011 [lent by the present owner].
Leiden, Museum de Lakenhal, “Gerrit Dou: The Leiden Collection from New York,” 9 March–31
August 2014 [lent by the present owner].
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden
Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].
Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age:Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection,” 23 September 2017–25 February 2018 [lent by the presentowner].
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpiecesof The Leiden Collection,” 28 March 2018–22 July 2018 [lent by the present owner].
St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces ofThe Leiden Collection,” 5 September 2018–13 January 2019 [lent by the present owner].
Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces fromThe Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre,” 14 February–18 May 2019 [lent by the presentowner].
San Diego, Timken Museum of Art, “Exchanging Words: Women and Letters in Seventeenth-Century
Dutch Genre Painting,” 21 September–31 December 2022 [lent by the present owner].

References
Martin, Wilhelm. “Het leven en de werken van Gerrit Dou beschouwd in verband met het schilderslevenvan zijn tijd.” PhD diss. Universiteit Leiden. Leiden, 1901, no. 210.
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters ofthe Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith. Edited and translated by Edward G. Hawke, 1:375, no. 97. 8 vols. London, 1907–28. Originally published as Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis
der Werke der hervorragendsten höllandischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts. 10 vols. Esslingen andParis, 1907–28.
Sedelmeyer, Charles. Illustrated Catalogue of the Eleventh Series of 100 Paintings by Old Masters of theDutch, Flemish, Italian, French, and English Schools. Sales cat. Sedelmeyer Gallery. Paris, 1911, 10, no.
6.
Middlesbrough Municipal Art Gallery. Exhibition of Dutch and Flemish Masters of the Sixteenth andSeventeenth Centuries. Exh. cat. Middlesbrough, Municipal Art Gallery. Middlesbrough, 1949.
Scarborough Municipal Art Gallery. Dutch and Flemish Masters from the Collection of Mrs. R. A.
© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Lady, Seated with a Music Book on Her Lap
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Constantine and Family. Exh. cat. Scarborough, Municipal Art Gallery. Scarborough, 1960, no. 28.
Baer, Ronni. “The Paintings of Gerrit Dou (1613–1675).” 3 vols. PhD diss. New York University, 1990,no. 34.
Franits, Wayne. Paragons of Virtue: Women and Domesticity in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art. New
Haven and London, 1993, 19–20.
Surh, Dominique, Ilona van Tuinen, and John Twilley. “Insights from Technical Analysis on a Group ofPaintings by Gerrit Dou in the Leiden Collection.” JHNA 6:1 (Winter 2014): 2-4, 8-9, 11, 21-22, figs.
6a-b, 18-20, 60a-b. DOI:10.5092/jhna.2014.6.1.3.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Portrait of a Lady, Seated with a Music Book on Her Lap”. In Rembrandt andHis Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 88–89; 180, no. 34.
Translated by Li Ying. Beijing, 2017.
Long Museum, West Bund. Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age: Masterpieces fromThe Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund. Shanghai, 2017, 108–9.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Portrait of a Lady, Seated with a Music Book on Her Lap.” In The Age ofRembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 84–85;
233, no. 9. Translated by Daria Babich and Daria Kuzina. Exh. cat. Moscow, The Pushkin State
Museum of Fine Arts; St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Moscow, 2018.
Ducos, Blaise, and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, eds. Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age.
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu
Dhabi. London, 2019, 144, no. 66. [Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]
Capern, Amanda. “Literature and Letters.” In The Routledge History of Women in Early Modern Europe.
Edited by Amanda Capern, 416–17, fig. 15. New York, 2020.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. Exchanging Words: Women and Letters in Seventeenth-Century Dutch GenrePainting. Exh. brochure. San Diego, Timken Museum of Art. San Diego, 2022, fig. 9.

Technical Summary
The painting was executed on a panel made from a single plank of vertically grained oak. Dendrochronology
indicates the tree was felled after 1614.[1] The back of the panel is not beveled and it bears rough tool marks.
This could be an indication that it has been thinned. Remnants of three metal brads along the top edge
indicate that at some point a shim was probably attached to the top edge.
The light-colored ground was thinly and evenly applied. It is radio-opaque, accentuating the woodgrain in theX-radiograph. The paint was built up in successive, thin layers. The X-radiograph shows that originally thecomposition was arched on the top. It also indicates that the sitter’s body may originally have been situatedslightly to the left of its current position. Infrared reflectography[2] indicates that the contours of the drapery
were changed. Both swags were raised, the left swag more so than the right, and the drapery may have hung© 2024 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Portrait of a Lady, Seated with a Music Book on Her Lap
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down on the right, similar to the way it does so on the left.
The painting is in very good condition. The panel has a slight convex warp and the paint in the curtainsexhibits some traction crackle. The painting underwent minor treatment in 2009.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. Ian Tyers, dendrochronological report, November 2010.
2. Infrared reflectography was performed at unknown parameters.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection