Scholar Interrupted at His Writingca. 1635

Gerrit Dou(Leiden 1613 – 1675 Leiden)

oil on oval panel
24.5 x 20 cm
signed, on a piece of paper protruding from theopen book: “GDou” (GD in ligature)
GD-102Currently on view at: The National Museum ofChina, Beijing© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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How To Cite
Surh, Dominique. "Scholar Interrupted at His Writing." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur
K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017.
https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/.
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© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Scholar Interrupted at His Writing
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An elderly scholar glances up from his writing to gaze directly at theComparative Figures

viewer. With pen paused on the paper before him, he sits at his desk
where an open book leans against a globe and a pen case lies obliquelyalong the table edge. Among Gerrit Dou’s numerous paintings of a scholar
in his study, none focuses so directly on a specific moment in time as does
this compelling masterpiece, one of the most finely accomplished works inthe artist’s early mature style. The old man’s alert pose and fleeting
expression create the sense of an arrested moment, whereas Dou’s
careful rendering of the scholar’s aging features, including his thinning hairand finely wrinkled skin, reveals a keen awareness of time’s inevitablepassing. The artist reiterates this emphasis by depicting an hourglass withfine sand trickling through its narrow neck.
Dou concentrates our attention on the scholar’s expression through a

Fig 1. Gerrit Dou, An Interior with
Young Violinist, 1637, oil on
panel, arched top, 31.1 x 23.7
inches, National Gallery of
Scotland, Edinburgh, NG 2420

delicate play of light and shadow on his face. Light flooding in from the left
highlights his forehead and the tip of his nose, leaving his eyes dimly lit inshadow. This focus is heightened by the glowing light on the column,
which contrasts with the shadow on the man’s face and the darkness ofthe background. The open book casts a subtle reflection of light back onto
his face, seeming to embody the way its contents illuminate him andfurther reinforcing the psychological intensity of his gaze.
Dou’s mastery of lighting and compositional balance in Scholar Interrupted
suggests that he executed this work around 1635. Another point ofreference for this date, as Baer has noted, is the close compositional
similarity between this work and Rembrandt’s etched Portrait of Johannes

Fig 2. X-radiograph of Gerrit Dou,
Scholar Interrupted at His
Writing, GD-102

Wtenbogaert, dated 1635.[1] The painting also shares much in common
with another small-scale panel from 1637, Dou’s earliest extant dated
work, An Interior with a Young Violinist in Edinburgh (fig 1). In bothpaintings, Dou creates an effective balance between a single figure in aninterior space and copious still-life elements surrounding him. Many of theobjects on the table and shelves in Scholar Interrupted, particularly theterrestrial globe and the book with the metal clasp, reappear in Dou’s otherpaintings from this period. His muted palette, dominated by browns, grays,
and tawny yellows for the highlights, is also seen in other works from thisperiod such as his Self-Portrait in Cheltenham and Portrait of a Lady,
Seated with a Music Book on Her Lap in the present collection (GD-116).
Martin identified the model for the scholar as Douwe Janszoon, the artist’s

Fig 3. Attributed to Gerrit Dou,
Artist in His Studio, ca. 1630–32,© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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father.[2] Dou’s father, however, would have been about fifty years old in
1635, and the scholar in this painting appears significantly older thanoil on panel, 59 x 43.5 inches,
private collection, United
Kingdomthat.[3] The bearded old man wears a tabard, a traditional housecoat
commonly worn in the seventeenth century by lawyers, scholars, andecclesiastics. His black skullcap probably indicates that Dou intended him
as a religious scholar.[4] Although the book on the table is visibly open to
page 61 and contains chapter heads set off in the margins, its precise
contents are illegible. The handwriting of the scholar’s letter is similarly
blurred, yet Dou took great measures to distinguish the textual characterof the book and letter by varying his brushwork.
An X-radiograph of the Scholar Interrupted reveals that the composition
evolved during the painting process (fig 2). In the upper right quadrant,
Dou originally planned for an artist’s easel similar to those that appear inhis paintings from the late 1620s and early 1630s.[5] This earlier

Fig 4. Gerrit Dou, Man Writing by
an Easel, ca. 1631–32, oil on
panel, 31.5 x 25 inches, private
collection

configuration is seen in such works as Artist in His Studio (fig 3) and Man
Writing by an Easel (fig 4), which point to the concept of the learned artist
or the parallel between the artist and the scholar.[6] When he painted overthe easel in the present work, he added a shelf with various small jars andbooks and included a Japanese parasol leaning against the wall. While thecompositional reworking does not appear to be unusual for Dou, the[7]change signifies a development in the fine-tuning of the iconography.

Fig 5. Detail of shelf with glassand metal jars, Gerrit Dou,
Scholar Interrupted at His
Writing, GD-102

The pictorial tradition of the scholar in his study was especially popular in
Leiden among Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–69) and his followers in thedecade between about 1625 and 1635.[8] Given that the city was animportant center of scholastic learning, the seat of one of the oldest
universities in Europe, and the site of a prominent school of theology, thepainting’s subject matter and themes would have been familiar to the local
intellectual elite. Though the painting possesses the character of a genre
scene painted from life, the nature of the scholar’s contemplative work is
evoked in the various symbolic references associated with the still-life
objects. The books and terrestrial globe may be understood as attributesof the scholar’s wisdom and knowledge, while the hourglass and skull
were well-established vanitas symbols that refer to the passing of time andthe fleeting nature of existence. One can assume that the scholar himself
is examining questions about the transience of life in his own writings, andFig 6. Nicolas Joseph Voyez(1742–1806), after Gerrit Dou, Levieillard en réfléxion, ca.
1757–73, engraving, 355 x 275
mm, British Museum, London, ©
Trustees of the British Museumthat he remains mindful that the wisdom and knowledge passed along
through books will long outlive him. As a clever parallel, Dou references© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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the theme of art surpassing the artist’s short life by inserting his signature,“GDou,” on a tattered piece of paper on the side of the book, adjacent theskullss.[9]The precise meanings of the objects on the shelf—particularly the closed
Japanese parasol, the empty birdcage, and the gourd hanging from thestaircase—are more difficult to establish.[10] The parasol frequently
appears in Dou’s later paintings, whether in his self-portraits above hiseasel or as an attribute of a quack performing before gullible
listeners.[11] In both contexts, the open parasol appears to signify theworking of illusion through deception.[12] Another intriguing detail is thebarely visible metal container on the shelf nestled between two jars above
the globe, on which Dou has written the letters “[…]ALVES” (fig 5).[13] This
ambiguous reference may, in fact, allude to salves and identify its contents
as ointments, an indication of the practice, often associated with quacks,
of using herbal remedies in the treatment of physical ailments.[14] It isdifficult to pinpoint the precise meaning of these elements and in whatmanner Dou intended for them to relate, if at all, to the scholar’s work ofcontemplation and writing.
Three known much later versions and an engraving from around 1760 byNicolas Joseph Voyez (fig 6) correspond compositionally to the Scholar
Interrupted, yet the painted versions may have been modeled after anothernow lost variant. They all differ from the present work in their arched-top
rather than oval format, and only the Voyez print includes the scarf draped
over the table edge and reflects the precise position of the pen case on thetable as it appears in Scholar Interrupted.[15] The lightly colored ground of
the present work, visible along the entire circumference of the panel’sedge, rules out any possibility that the format was modified.
The year Dou executed the present work also marks the beginning of thepatronage of the artist by the Delft merchant-turned-statesman Pieter
Spiering. Dou’s early biographer Joachim van Sandrart recounts that
Spiering offered Dou a lucrative retainer fee in exchange for the right offirst refusal of his works.[16] It is unclear how long this agreement lasted,
but Spiering must have amassed a superb collection of paintings directlyfrom the artist over the years, including the present Scholar Interrupted.
The painting is listed in a document dated 1652 involving a group of ten
panels that Spiering had sent to Queen Christina of Sweden for sale by© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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approval, sometime in the late 1640s.[17] Even though Queen Christina did
not purchase Scholar Interrupted, Spiering’s positive assessment has
been shared by later collectors, most notably Charles Morrison, who
acquired this small masterpiece around 1854. The painting remained in
the Morrison family at Sudeley Castle until it was sold in 2007, at whichtime it was acquired by the present collector.

-Dominique Surh

© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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Endnotes
1. Ronni Baer, “The Paintings of Gerrit Dou (1613–1675)” (Ph.D. diss., New York University,1990), no. 14; Ronni Baer, “Man Interrupted at His Writing,” in 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), 70–71, no. 4.
2. Wilhelm Martin, Het leven en de werken van Gerrit Dou (Leiden, 1901), no. 57.
3. The author would like to thank Piet Bakker (letter to the author, June 2012, curatorial files,
The Leiden Collection) for providing the following reference to a notarial document in Leiden
in 1627 that Dou’s father, Douwe Janszoon, was mentioned as being approximately fortyfive years old, making him approximately fifty-three in 1635. See reference Regional Archive
Leiden, Notarial Archive, notary J. J. Verwey, no. 106, act 121, 16 October 1627.
4. Marieke de Winkel, Fashion and Fancy: Dress and Meaning in Rembrandt’s Paintings(Amsterdam, 2006), 27ff, 40.
5. Richard W. Hunnewell, “Gerrit Dou’s Self-Portraits and Depictions of the Artist” (Ph.D. diss.,
Boston University, 1983).
6. Both paintings are illustrated in Ronni Baer, Gerrit Dou 1613–1675: Master Painter in theAge of Rembrandt, ed. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Galleryof Art; London, Dulwich Picture Gallery; The Hague, Mauritshuis) (Washington D.C., 2000),
64–65, no. 1; 68–69, no. 3.
7. Within the present collection, five other paintings by the artist underwent significant
compositional changes during the painting process, including: Cat Crouching on the Ledgeof an Artist’s Atelier (GD-108); Landscape with a Goat (GD-114); Scholar Sharpening a
Quill (GD-104); Portrait of a Lady with a Music Book on her Lap (GD-116); and Portrait of a
Gentleman with a Walking Stick (GD-113).
8. H. van de Waal, “Rembrandt’s ‘Faust’ Etching: A Socinian Document and the Iconography of
the Inspired Scholar,” in Steps Toward Rembrandt (Amsterdam, 1974), 133–81 (originallypublished in Oud Holland 79 (1964): 6–48.
9. Baer mentions the possible influence of Rembrandt’s portraits from the early 1630s in which
his placed his signature in a letter or paper held by the subject. See 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), 70–71, no. 4, n. 4, 136.
10. While the bird and birdcage sometimes carry an erotic meaning in Dutch painting, it isunclear whether Dou intended the empty birdcage hanging from the column to carry any© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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pointed commentary. Given the religious dress of the scholar and the absence of a bird, Dou
may have hinted at a religious vow of chastity. On the symbolism of birds, see Eddy deJongh, “A Bird’s-Eye View of Erotica: Double Entendre in a Series of Seventeenth-Century
Genre Scenes,” in Questions of Meaning: Theme and Motif in Dutch Seventeenth-Century
Painting, ed. and trans. Michael Hoyle (Leiden, 2000), 22–58. Originally published as“Erotica in vogelperspectief: De dubbelzinnigheid van een reeks zeventiende-eeuwse
genrevoorstellingen,” Simiolus 3 (1968–69).
11. A Japanese parasol appears open above an easel in Dou’s Self-Portrait of 1645 in a private
collection in Spain; Self-Portrait of 1647 in the Dresden Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister; theQuack of 1652 in Rotterdam; and Self-Portrait from ca. 1665 in the Van Otterloo Collection.
12. The parasol as a symbol of the quack doctor and the painter’s dependence on deception
was noted by Ivan Gaskell, “Gerrit Dou: His Patrons and the Art of Painting,”Oxford Art
Journal 5, no. 1 (1982): 20. See also Jan A. Emmens, “De kwakzalver van Gerard Dou,”
Openbaar Kunstbezit 15 (1971): 4.
13. Click here for the online version of the Middelnederlandsch Woodenboek and the Dutch
word salve (pl. salven). The word shown in the painting seems to refer to the English plural.
14. Willem Moreelse’s Portrait of a Scholar from 1647 (Toledo Museum of Art, acc. no. 62.70)
portrays a scholar holding a botanical print of two herbs, the euphorbium and butterbur,
which Laurinda Dixon has identified with the treatment of sluggishness and melancholia
among scholars. See Laurinda S. Dixon, “Privileged Piety: Melancholia and the Herbal
Tradition,” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 1, no. 2 (2009). Quacks wereassociated with the selling of medicinal ointments, potions, and salves, as illustrated by adrawing by Lenaert Bramer, Kwakzalver, from about 1659 in the Prentenkabinet in Leiden,in which a male figure is shown holding up a jar for sale.
15. For the details and whereabouts of the three versions, see the Versions section. The archedtop format of the Voyez print may have been added by the engraver, who otherwise repeated
all of the details visible in the present work.
16. While Sandrart speaks of a commission arrangement of 1,000 gulden, both Angel andHoubraken mention 500 gulden; see Bakker’s biography of Dou.
17. Martin identified number 5 in the 1652 document with the painting formerly in the Marquessof Bute collection, Old Man with Pen in Hand, which does not contain a globe andhourglass, yet Baer suggested that the present work more likely fits the description. See
Wilhelm Martin, Het leven en de werken van Gerrit Dou (Leiden, 1901), 45, no. 58;
reproduced in Wilhelm Martin, Gerard Dou, des Meisters Gemälde, Klassiker der Kunst(Stuttgart and Berlin, 1913), no. 61; Ronni Baer, “The Paintings of Gerrit Dou (1613–1675)”(Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1990), nos. 14 and 15; 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,© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Scholar Interrupted at His Writing
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Mauritshuis) (Washington D.C., 2000), 70–71, no. 4. The 1652 document sheds light both on
Spiering’s collection of paintings by the artist and his aspirations to resell them. Dou’s
paintings do not seem to have appealed to the queen’s taste, and they were returned toSpiering soon thereafter. See Per Bjurstrom, Queen Christina of Sweden: A Personality inEuropean Civilization (Exh. cat. Stockholm, Nationalmuseum) (Stockholm, 1966), 426, no.
1028.

ProvenancePieter Spiering, The Hague; sent to Queen Christina of Sweden (1626–89) for approvalprobably late 1640s; returned to Spiering by 1652.
Baron Nagel Collection, London (his sale, Christie’s, London, 21 March 1795, no. 48 [for£120.15]).
Richard Creed Collection (his sale, Christie’s, London, 15 May 1813, no. 9 [to Philip Hill for£131.50; John Smith, London, to Philippe Panné for 250 guineas]).
Edward Gray, London, by 1829.
(Possibly sale, Edward Foster, London, 15 June 1835, no. 130; possible sale, Christie’s,
London, 4 June 1836, no. 7 [to Larken for £2.12]; possible sale, Christie’s, London, 4 May
1839, no. 117, unsold at £3; possible sale, Christie’s, London, 18 January 1840, no. 25 [toMoney for £2.10]).
Charles Morrison Collection, London, by 1854; by descent to Mrs. Morrison, 1879; bydescent to Sudeley Castle Trustees, Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, Walter Morrison
Collection; [Johnny van Haeften, London, 2007].
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2007.

Exhibition History
London, Royal Academy of Arts, “Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters and by Deceased
Masters of the British School: Winter Exhibition, Tenth Year,” 1879, no. 113 [lent by Mrs.
Morrison].
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, “Gerrit Dou, 1613–1675: Master Painter in theAge of Rembrandt,” 16 April–6 August 2000; London, Dulwich Picture Gallery, 6
September–19 November 2000; The Hague, Mauritshuis, 9 December 2000–25 February
2001, no. 4 [lent by the Trustees of Sudeley Castle].
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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Oxford, Ashmolean Museum of Art, December 2009–January 2011, on loan with thepermanent collection [lent by the present owner].
Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, “Communication: Visualizing the Human Connection in theAge of Vermeer,” 25 June–16 October 2011; Miyagi Museum of Art, 27 October–12
December 2011; Tokyo, Bunkamura Museum of Art, 23 December 2011–14 March 2012,
no. 13 [lent by the present owner].
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, on loan with the permanent collection, April 2013–February
2014 [lent by the present owner].
Leiden, Museum de Lakenhal, “Gerrit Dou: The Leiden Collection from New York,” 9March–31 August 2014 [lent by the present owner].
Paris, Museé du Louvre, “Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection: The Age of Rembrandt,”
22 February–22 May 2017 [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].

References
Smith, John. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, andFrench Painters. 9 vols. London, 1829–42, 1:29, no. 87.
Waagen, Gustav Friedrich. Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being an Account of the Chief
Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Mss. 4 vols. London, 1854–57,
2:262.
Jervis-White-Jervis, Marian Campbell, Lady. Painting and Celebrated Painters Ancient andModern including Historical and Critical Notices of the Schools of Italy, Spain, France,
Germany, and the Netherlands. 2 vols. London, 1854, 2:331.
Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters and of Deceased Masters of the British School,
Winter Exhibition, Tenth Year. London, 1879, 23, no. 113.
Martin, Wilhelm. Het Leven en de Werken van Gerrit Dou. Leiden, 1901, 190, no. 57.
Martin, Wilhelm. Gerard Dou. Translated from the Dutch by Clara Bell. London, 1902, 111,
no. 43.
Wurzbach, A. Niederlandisches Kunstler-Lexikon. Vienna and Leipzig, 1910, 419.
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent
Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith . 8 vols.
London, 1907–27. Translated from Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke
der hervorragendsten höllandischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts . 10 vols. Esslingen and© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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Paris, 1907–28, 1:360–61, no. 55.
Martin, Wilhelm. Gerard Dou, sa vie et son oeuvre: Etude sur la peinture hollandaise et lesmarchands au dix-septième siècle. Paris, 1911, 166, no. 20.
Martin, Wilhelm. Gerard Dou, des Meisters Gemälde. Klassiker der Kunst. Stuttgart andBerlin, 1913, 62.
Baer, Ronni. “The Paintings of Gerrit Dou (1613–1675).” Ph.D. diss. New York University,
1990, no. 14.
Baer, Ronni. “Man Interrupted at His Writing.” In Gerrit Dou 1613–1675: Master Painter inthe Age of Rembrandt. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. Exh. cat. Washington, National
Gallery of Art; London, Dulwich Picture Gallery; The Hague, Mauritshuis. New Haven, CT,
2000–1, 70–71, no. 4.
Surh, Dominique. “A Scholar Interrupted at His Writing.” InHuman Connections in the Ageof Vermeer. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. Exh. cat. Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art;
Sendai, Migagi Museum of Art; Tokyo, Bunkamura Museum of Art. Tokyo, 2011, 66–68, no.
13.
Norbutus, Amanda. “Technical Investigation of the Materials and Methods Utilized in a Copyof a Seventeenth-Century Dutch Genre Painting: Gerrit Dou’s Man Interrupted at His Writing(1635).” Ph.D. diss. Villanova University, 2008, 4–15, fig. 1b.2.
Surh, Dominique, Van Tuinen, Ilona and Twilley, John. “Insights from Technical Analysis on
a Group of Paintings by Gerrit Dou in the Leiden Collection.” Journal of Historians ofNetherlandish Art 6, no. 1 (Winter 2014): 1, 3, 4, 6–10, 14–16, 18, 20, 23–24, 30, figs. 2a,2b, 16, 17a, 17b, 25, 35, 36a, 36b, 37, 38a, 38b, 39a, 39b, 52, 53a, 52b, 54, 65a, 65b, 67.

Versions
Engraved
1. Nicolas Joseph Voyez (1742–1806), after Gerrit Dou, La vieillard en réfléxion, ca. 1757–73,
engraving, 355 x 275 mm, British Museum, London.

Versions and Copies
1. Copy after Gerrit Dou, An Alchemist in His Laboratory , oil on panel, unknown dimensions,Chemical Heritage Foundation, Philadelphia.

2. Copy after Gerrit Dou, Man Interrupted at His Writing , oil on canvas, 16 x 13.5 cm,
Collection Anthony Langalante, Pennsylvania.
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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3. Copy after Gerrit Dou, Scholar Interrupted at His Study , oil on panel, 33 x 26.7 cm, National
Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.

Versions Notes

Technical Summary
The support for this small oval painting is a vertically grained oak panel made from a single
plank. The wood is from the Baltic region and has a fell date of 1600.[1] The panel retains its
original bevel around the outer edge of the reverse. The bevel angle is slightly shallower along
the left edge. The panel has a slight convex warp when viewed from the front.
The panel was prepared with a light-colored, thinly and evenly applied ground. The ground isvisible along the entire perimeter of the face painting, but it does not extend over the edges. The
presence of the ground around the entire circumference of the front of the painting and thepresence of the bevel on the entire circumference of the reverse indicate that the painting retains
its original dimensions.
The X-radiograph shows several changes. In the upper right quadrant there is currently a shelfwith various objects on it under a spiral staircase, but the original composition appears to have
had a painting on an easel in this area. In addition, the birdcage, hourglass, and the slip of paper
extending from the book are not visible in the X-radiograph, indicating they were later additions.
Infrared reflectography shows a dark curved shape extending across the table, through the edgeof the book and the brow of the skull.[2]The paint was applied thinly and smoothly with slight impasto in the objects on the table, except
for the hourglass. Both highlights and shadows were painted over the midtones. The hourglassand the slip of paper extending from the book with the artist’s signature on it were painted wetover-dry, further indicating that they were added later. The pigment vivianite was used in thescarf. This pigment changes from blue to yellow, therefore there may have been more of a color
contrast between the scarf and the tablecloth originally.[3] Coarse pigments in a fairly thick paintwere used to create the text of the book, which is in contrast to the dilute paint with fine particles
used for the handwritten page in this painting and for the book text inScholar Sharpening his
Quill (GD-104).[4]There is a fair amount of traction crackle throughout the painting, but it is especially heavy in thelower portion of the tablecloth. There is also abrasion in the scholar’s cloak and around theperimeter. The painting was treated in 2007.

Technical Summary Endnotes© 2017 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

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1. Dendochronology report by Ian Tyers, November 2012. Tyers reports that the board’s
narrow size indicates it has probably been trimmed, which precludes the conjecture of an
earliest probable usage date.
2. Infrared reflectography was performed by Shawn Digney-Peer at unknown specifications.
3. John Twilley, scientific examination report, 15 April 2011.
4. John Twilley, scientific examination report, 15 April 2011, and scientific examination
report of Scholar Sharpening his Quill, 10 January 2013.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection