Portrait of a Woman in Profile
Gerrit Dou(Leiden 1613 – 1675 Leiden)

ca. 1635–40
oil on panel
13.3 x 11.3 cm
signed in dark paint along left midpoint of oval:“GDou”
GD-110© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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How to cite
Surh, Dominique. “Portrait of a Woman in Profile” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed. Edited by Arthur
K. Wheelock Jr. and Lara Yeager-Crasselt. New York, 2020–23. https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/ (archivedDecember 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

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This profile portrait of an attractive young woman with wisps of wavy brown hair

Comparative Figurescurling over her forehead is one in a series of small, bust-length studies that Gerrit
Dou painted in an oval format between 1635 and 1640.[1] Comparable paintings bythe artist include his Portrait Bust of a Youth from ca. 1635 in the FitzwilliamMuseum in Cambridge (fig 1), and Portrait of a Young Woman from ca. 1635–40 in
the Manchester City Art Galleries.[2] All three works are similar in scale and format,
and situate a delicately rendered sitter against a loosely brushed background. This
unknown female sitter is portrayed in a fur-trimmed jacket of the type worn by ladies
in the middle class, and is shown without a formal ruff or other collar. She wears asimple embroidered silk undercap, called blackwork, with a scrolling foliage patterntypical of the 1630s, but not the intricate lace coif of the type that would have[3]

normally been worn over it. This manner of dress indicates a degree of informality
and suggests that she may have been a relative or close personal acquaintance of theartist.[4] Given her orientation facing left, it is possible that Dou originally paired her

Fig 1. Gerrit Dou, Portrait Bust of aYouth, ca. 1635, oil on panel, 15.1 x
12.2 cm, Fitzwilliam Museum,Cambridge, nr. 35, © 2000–2012, The
Fitzwilliam Museum, University ofCambridge, UK.

with a now-lost male pendant.
The woman’s unusual “earring” further situates her fashion to the 1630s. This type ofornament is not attached to her ear, but is part of her headdress. It actuallyhangs from the tips of her ear-iron (oorijzer), which holds her undercap in place.
Marieke de Winkel has found mention of similar such ornaments, consisting of
crescent moons and a small pendant pearl or crystal, in inventories of women who
were deceased in the 1640s but married in the 1630s, when they likely purchased
these fashionable items.[5]In Dou’s portrait, a bright light illuminates the sitter’s glowing complexion, rosy lips

Fig 2. Detail of face, Portrait of aWoman in Profile, GD-110

and high-collared white shirt. The artist’s close observation of light is evident in theway the shirt casts a bluish-white reflection on the underside of the woman’s chin.
Dou’s painterly virtuosity is particularly apparent in the smooth and delicate renderingof the sitter’s facial features, where his individualized brushstrokes are virtuallyimperceptible. Dou had an extraordinary capacity to balance areas of minute detailwith more broadly painted passages. Here, for example, he allowed the ocher groundto provide a base color for the sitter’s hair by painting the hair follicles withoverlapping strokes of transparent paint. The range of his brushwork is evident in theFig 3. Detail of collar, Portrait of a
Woman in Profile, GD-110

freely rendered curly wisps of hair that fall along her temples, where some single
follicles are also incised in the same color of her flesh tone (fig 2). These wavy
strokes contrast with the carefully brushed parallel hatchings that model both her
temple and her eyebrow in virtually indistinguishable tones of color. Dou painted thesemi-translucent bonnet with loosely brushed strokes that vary in rhythm andthickness, carefully allowing the faintly perceptible shape of the lady’s ear to readthrough the embroidered undercap’s delicate form. Finally, painting wet-into-wet,© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Dou softened the edges of the fur cloak by dragging his brush back and forth over thewhites of the woman’s shirt (fig 3).
Despite Dou’s careful manner of painting to model his forms and create a range oftextures, he often adjusted his compositions during the pictorial process. In thisinstance, he shifted the sitter’s profile slightly to the right, a change that is apparent
with the naked eye and also through infrared reflectography. This change isparticularly evident along the sitter’s forehead, suggesting that she may initially havedirected her gaze slightly lower than in the final orientation.
An intriguing feature of this small portrait is the construction of its panel support,
where the painted oval panel is set into a larger rectangular one. The reasons for thisFig 4. Verso of Portrait of a Womanin Profile, GD-110

construction are unclear, but other examples of such inserted panels are known by
Dou and other Leiden painters.[6] In the case of the present Portrait of a Woman inProfile, the dendrochronology of the outer rectangular panel dates from the1660s–70s, which suggests that it was later adapted to a larger format.[7]Three unidentified red wax seals on the reverse reference the painting’s unknown
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century owners (fig 4). The provenance is documented
only as far back as 1914, when the work formed part of the renowned Marcus Kappel
collection in Berlin (fig 5). Acquired by descent during the third decade of thetwentieth century, the pocket-sized Dou painting made its way to England with Henry

Fig 5. Interior of Marcus Kappel
Gallery, Berlin, ca. 1921, where
GD-110 is seen at the far right, lowerrow (photo: Sotheby’s, New York, 4June 2009, 38).

T. Rathenau, who escaped Berlin during World War II. The little Dou was kept in abank vault in England up until 1997, when Rathenau’s last heir, his sister Ellen
Ettlinger, passed away.[8]- Dominique Surh, 2017

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Page 5 of 8Endnotes
1. According to Ronni Baer, the handling of the paint and the delicately drawn features point to a datecloser to 1640. See Ronni Baer, “Portrait of a Woman,” in Gerrit Dou 1613–1675: Master Painter in theAge of Rembrandt, ed. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art;London, Dulwich Picture Gallery; The Hague, Mauritshuis) (Zwolle, 2000) 82–83, no. 10.
2. The Dou in the Manchester City Art Gallery is illustrated in Ronni Baer, Gerrit Dou 1613–1675: MasterPainter 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),
80–81, no. 9.
3. Marieke de Winkel, letter to the author, July 2013, curatorial files, The Leiden Collection.
4. Marieke de Winkel, letter to the author, July 2013, curatorial files, The Leiden Collection.
5. The author would like to thank Marieke de Winkel (letter to the author, July 2013, curatorial files, TheLeiden Collection) for identifying the “earrings” as part of the ear-iron and for providing the following
references to inventories from the 1630s and 1640s that describe these jewels: Stadsarchief Amsterdam,
Notarial Archive, notary J. Westfrisius, no. 563B, fols. 1–21, 1/5 jan. 1636, inventory of Abraham deMarez (II) and Rebecca Hooghcamer, there at fol. 20r: “2 dito [peerlen] in halve maenties hangende f.
30:-:-”; Stadsarchief Amsterdam, Notarial Archive, notary A. Eggericx, no. 1811B, pp. 963-94, dd. 20
jul. 1642, inventory of Jacques van Hoorn and Sofia van den Brande, there at p. 983: “2 halve maenen
met cristallen”; Stadsarchief Amsterdam, Notarial Archive, notary F. Bruyningh, no. 1414, fols. 41–48,dd. 23 nov. 1643, inventory of Mr. Paulus Jansz Iepelaar and Magdalena Jans, there at fol. 48r: “Eensilver ysertien met 2 halve maentiens op f. 5:-:-”. The author also thanks Piet Bakker for providing theprecise folio numbers.
6. See Quentin Buvelot and Otto Naumann, “Format Changes in Paintings by Frans van Mieris the Elder,”Burlington Magazine (February 2008): 102–4. In 2012 Gero Seelig, curator of Netherlandish paintings at
the Staatliche Museum in Schwerin, presented his ongoing research on this phenomenon at Codart
Vijftien in Brussels and shared a list of inlaid panels including works by an overwhelming number ofLeiden painters such as Dou, Frans and Willem van Mieris, Godfried Schalcken, and Pieter vanSlingeland, among others. For a partial list of these unsual constructions in Dou’s oeuvre, see Ronni
Baer, “Of Cats and Dogs: Domestic Pets in Rembrandt and Dou,” in Een Kroniek voor Jeroen Giltaij:Kroniek van het Rembrandthuis (2012): 66–67 n. 16; Anja K. Sevcik and Jiri Trestik, “Doorstep
Transactions: Structural and Compositional Transformations on Gerard Dou’s Young Lady on aBalcony,” Bulletin of the National Gallery in Prague 22–23 (2012–13): 23–43.
7. Ian Tyers, “Tree-Ring Analysis of Portrait of a Lady in Profile, GD-110,” unpublisheddendrochronological report, November 2010, curatorial files, the Leiden Collection. Since the oval
panel is firmly set into the larger panel, dendrochronological examination of the earlier oval panel is not© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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possible through traditional means at this time.
8. On the painting’s twentieth-century provenance, see Dominique Surh, “Portrait of a Woman in Profile,”in Salomon Lilian Old Masters (Sales cat. Amsterdam) (Zwolle, 2003), 26–27, no. 8.

ProvenanceMarcus Kappel, Berlin, 1914; by descent to Henry T. Rathenau, Berlin; by descent to his sister, Ellen
Ettlinger, Oxford, England, until 1997 [to Otto Naumann Ltd. and John Hoogsteder].
[Otto Naumann Ltd., New York and John Hoogsteder, The Hague (to Noortman Gallery).][Noortman Gallery, Maastricht and Salomon Lilian, Amsterdam (through Derek Johns Ltd., London,).]From whom acquired by the present owner in 2003.

Exhibition History
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, on loan with the permanent collection, before 1940 (inv. no. 1173, label onverso).
Washington, National Gallery of Art, “Gerrit Dou, 1613–1675: Master Painter in the Age ofRembrandt,” April 16–August 6, 2000; London, Dulwich Picture Gallery, September 6–November 19,2000; The Hague, Mauritshuis, December 9, 2000–February 25, 2001, no. 10 [lent by a privatecollector].
Oxford, Ashmolean Museum of Art, on loan with the permanent collection, December 2009–January
2011 [lent by the present owner].
Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, “Dutch Treat,” 11 October 2011–6 January 2012 [lent by thepresent 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 fromThe LeidenCollection,” 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].

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References
Baer, Ronni. “Portrait of a Woman.” In Gerrit Dou, 1613–1675: Master Painter in the Age of Rembrandt.
Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., 82–83, no. 10. Exh. cat. Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art;London, Dulwich Picture Gallery; The Hague, Mauritshuis. Zwolle, 2000.
Surh, Dominique. “Portrait of a Woman in Profile.” In Salomon Lilian Old Masters. Sales cat.
Amsterdam, 2003, 26–27, no. 8.
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): 1, 3, 5, 20–22, figs. 4a–b,57, 58, 61. DOI:10.5092/jhna.2014.6.1.3.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Portrait of a Woman in Profile.” In Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces fromThe Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 86, no. 33, 180, no. 33. Translated by Li Ying.
Exh. cat. Beijing, National Museum of China. 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, 106.

Technical Summary
The painting is executed on a vertically grained, oval oak panel, which has been set into a larger rectangularoak panel with a vertical grain. The rectangular panel is considerably thicker than the oval. The oval panel
could not be dated because the edges are obscured, but the rectangular panel has an earliest felling date of
1661.[1] It is unclear when the oval was set into the rectangular panel, but it was likely during the artist’slifetime.[2] The rectangular panel has equal, steep bevels on all four edges, and the composite panel has aslight convex warp when viewed from the front.
The rectangular panel is unprimed and unpainted, but the oval panel was prepared with a light-coloredground that was thinly and evenly applied. The priming is radio-opaque and accentuates the woodgrain of theoval panel in the X-radiograph. The ground does not extend all the way to the edges of the oval, but the paintdoes. The paint has been built up in successive thin layers, painted wet-into-wet. The paint is so thin in thebackground that the ground shows through, but there is slight impasto in the figure, most notably along theouter contours of her cap, her proper left sleeve, and the fur trim of her cloak. Raised brushwork in thebackground indicates a horizontally oriented arch to the right of the sitter’s head, which does not relate to thecurrent composition. Infrared photographs and a pentimento reveal that the sitter’s profile was shifted slightly
to the right.[3]The painting is in good condition. There are slight protrusions and related craters throughout the paint andsome craquelure is visible. There are some marks around the lower right side of the oval, which may berabbet damage from an old frame. This would indicate that the oval panel was set into the rectangular panel
well after the painting was completed.
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Technical Summary Endnotes

1. Ian Tyers, dendrochronological report, November 2012.
2. Ian Tyers, dendrochronological report, November 2012.
3. Infrared photographs were taken at 780, 850, and 1000 nm.

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