Young Woman in a Niche with aParrot and Cageca. 1660–65

Gerrit Dou(Leiden 1613 – 1675 Leiden)

24.8 x 18.4 cm

oil on panel
GD-105Currently on view at: National Gallery of Ireland© 2017 The Leiden CollectionYoung Woman in a Niche with a Parrot and Cage
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How To Cite
Surh, Dominique. "Young Woman in a Niche with a Parrot and Cage." 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Young Woman in a Niche with a Parrot and Cage
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In 1665 the distinguished Leiden collector Johan de Bye held an exhibition

Comparative Figuresof twenty-seven paintings by Gerrit Dou, including two works currently in
The Leiden Collection: Goat in a Landscape (GD-114) and this delightful
genre scene, described in De Bye’s inventory as: “meysge in een venster
mit 1 papegaey en koy” (a young girl in a window with one parrot andcage).[1] In this scene, a young woman leans out from behind a simple
arched stone niche while holding her pet bird she has taken out of anelaborate metal cage. The girl gazes to our right with an expression ofsweet anticipation enlivening her face, as though in the act of showing thisrarified beauty to a companion outside of the frame. Obscuring our view
into the darkened interior in which she stands is a gathered red curtain

Fig 1. Detail of drapery showing
hatching, Young Woman in a
Niche with a Parrot and Cage,
GD-105hanging from the inner edge of the niche.
The composition is known from a number of versions and copies, of which
at least eleven have been recorded. This example, which resurfaced only
in 1955, was unknown to early twentieth-century scholars, including
Wilhelm Martin and Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, who tentatively identified
other versions as Dou’s original. Martin considered a now-lost painting
formerly in the Gagarin Collection in St. Petersburg[2] and another version
in the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire in Geneva to be autograph. The attribution

Fig 2. Detail of Gerrit Dou, Old
Man Praying, ca. 1665–70, oil on
panel, 17.8 x 12.7 cm, GD-107

of the latter work, which was also cautiously accepted by Hofstede deGroot, was later rejected by Ronni Baer, who noted that the signature wasfalse and deemed the work to be a copy after Dou.[3]Martin and Hofstede de Groot were correct when they questioned whether
the versions they knew were the work described in De Bye’s
exhibition.[4] Stylistically and technically, however, the present work ischaracteristic of Dou’s manner from the first half of the 1660s.[5] The
master’s versatility and boldness are evident in the overall variety of thebrushwork. The modeling of the face is smooth and blended, yet distinct
parallel hatching can be seen below the figure’s proper right eye. The folds

Fig 3. Detail of blue-fronted
Amazon parrot, Young Woman ina Niche with a Parrot and Cage,
GD-105of the dark red curtain are modeled with short parallel lines that evoke thepattern of twill and the texture of wool (fig 1). This distinctive hatching isfound often in Dou’s work from the 1660s and is seen, for example, on theback of the clasping hands in Old Man Praying (GD-108) (fig 2).[6] In both
works, the ground shows through in areas around the figures’ hairline andface, and is here particularly visible along the strand of pearls around thelady’s neck.

© 2017 The Leiden CollectionYoung Woman in a Niche with a Parrot and Cage
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The manner in which Dou built the paint layers from the ground up, fromdistant elements to foreground objects, is characteristic of his painting
technique. For example, Dou painted the lower portion of the red curtain
and the woman’s apron before depicting the birdcage so that the reds
would show between the cage’s wires; subsequently he painted theparrot.[7] Similarly, the range of tonalities with which Dou depicted thewoman’s hair at her hairline is comparable to techniques observed in hisother paintings (see Portrait of a Woman in Profile, GD-110).
A final argument in favor of the painting’s status as the prime version is theanatomically accurate depiction of the parrot perched on the young
woman’s index finger. The species is a South American bird known as theFig 4. Emblem from Jacob Cats,
Sinne-en minnebeelden(Rotterdam, 1627), no. 14:“Amissa Libertate Laetior”(Although freedom is lost, he ishappier)blue-fronted Amazon (Amazona aestiva), indigenous to parts of Brazil,
Paraguay, Bolivia, and Argentina.[8] Its features include a blue and yellow(or white) face with distinctive red feathers at the bend and tip of thewings, while its overall plumage is green (fig 3). Dou’s parrot probably
appears blue rather than green because of pigment change or the loss of ayellow glaze covering the underlying blue paint through an overly
aggressive restoration of the painting.[9] Dou must have based his image
on an actual bird in captivity: parrots were often imported to theNetherlands during this period on ships belonging to the Dutch West India
Company.[10] Though Dou accurately rendered the parrot’s features, inlater versions of this work the bird’s distinctive markings, particularly thered on the feathers at the bend and tip of the wing, are often lacking.

Fig 5. Daniel Heinsius,
Emblemata amatoria(Amsterdam, 1608), no. 21:“Perch’io stesso mi strinsi” (For I
have bound myself)

In the seventeenth century, parrots were expensive status symbols,
particularly those that survived the long journey from the New
World.[11] Associated with luxury, wealth and prestige, they were especiallyfavored pets because of their beautiful songs, exotic shapes, and colorfulplumage. Their ability to emulate speech further enhanced their appeal
and gave them a reputation for being excellent learners. In his Sinne-en
minnebeelden of 1627, Jacob Cats pointed to this virtue in an emblem
depicting a parrot in a hanging cage (fig 4), with a subtext that reads:“Dwanck, leert sanck” (Discipline teaches speech).[12] The accompanying
text describes the bird in captivity as a symbol for the discipline andeducation that are necessary for an adult to lead an honorable and refinedlife.
Parrots became popular motifs in high-style Dutch genre painting,Fig 6. Caspar Netscher, Woman
Feeding a Parrot, with a Page,
signed and dated, lower left,
CNetscher. Ao./ 16.66, oil on
panel, 46 x 37 cm, National
Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.,
The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund

© 2017 The Leiden CollectionYoung Woman in a Niche with a Parrot and Cage
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particularly beginning in the 1660s.[13] One well-known example is Frans
van Mieris’s Young Woman Feeding a Parrot (FM-112) from about 1663
in the present collection, in which a young woman is shown feeding her petbird while pausing from her sewing. Here the parrot has been interpreted
as a symbol for the eagerness to learn, while the woman’s needlework
refers to her domestic virtues of diligence and industry.[14]The symbolism of birds and birdcages in genre scenes often had amorous
and/or erotic connotations, sometimes subtle and sometimes not.[15] For
example, Cats’s emblem cited above offers an additional reading where
the encaged bird is seen as a metaphor for love’s sweet entrapment: “Bly,door slaverny” (Joy through captivity).[16] This same symbolism is found inDaniel Heinsius’s emblem, which makes use of the Petrarchian motto“Perch’io stesso mi strinsi” (For I have bound myself) and illustrates arecumbent cupid observing the sight of birds willingly flying into a cage(fig5).[17] Another closely related tradition is the symbolism of a bird freed fromits cage, often represented by an amorous couple who entice a bird out of
its cage with a bite of food, or by a female whose bird has just escaped
captivity. In both cases, this emblematic image was understood to refer tolost virginity and the loss of innocence.[18]In light of the varied symbolic meanings associated with a bird and its
cage, this work would undoubtedly have amused viewers with its
ambiguity. Situated at the threshold of her domestic realm, the young
woman has freed her parrot from its cage and, smilingly, presents it to theoutside world. She appears unconcerned that in one fleeting instant her
beloved bird could fly away, forever lost from her safekeeping. By
depicting the very manifestation of the woman’s youthful innocence in thisseemingly carefree moment, Dou invites the viewer to complete the story.
Caspar Netscher captured this same idea a few years later in hisWoman
Feeding a Parrot of 1666 (National Gallery of Art, Washington), in which
he staged a comparable scene at an arched window (fig 6). As opposed
to Dou’s young woman, Netscher’s girl has a beguiling glance and acoquettish smile, suggesting that a loss of innocence may have alreadytranspired.

-Dominique Surh
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Endnotes
1. Eric Jan Sluijter, Leidse Fijnschilders van Gerrit Dou tot Frans van Mieris de Jonge
1630–1760 (Exh. cat. Leiden, Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) (Leiden, 1988), 36–37; Ivan
Gaskell, “Gerrit Dou, His Patrons and the Art of Painting,” Oxford Art Journal 5, no. 1(1982): 19–21. This painting is listed as number 17 in the inventory. Johan de Bye’s
exhibition list was first published in Wilhelm Martin, Gerard Dou, trans. Clara Bell (London,
1902), 145–46, no. 17; see also T. H. Lunsingh Scheurleer, ed., Het Rapenburg:
Geschiedenis van een Leidse gracht , 6 vols. and index (Leiden, 1986–92), 3b: appendix 1,
486, no. 17.
2. The Sotheby’s 2007 sale catalogue erroneously equated the present painting with theversion formerly in the Gagarin collection. There are obvious differences between these
versions, visible through photographic comparison alone, but the most obvious varianceresides in their different dimensions. On the version formerly in the Gagarin collection, see P.
P. Weiner, Les anciennes écoles de peinture dans les palais et collections
priveés russes (Exh. cat. Brussels) (Brussels, 1910), 93, no. 319; Wilhelm Martin, Gerard
Dou, des Meisters Gemälde, Klassiker der Kunst (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1913), no. 111;
Ronni Baer, “The Paintings of Gerrit Dou (1613–1675),” 3 vols. (Ph.D. diss., New York
University, 1990), Appendix A, under “Untraced Works.”
3. This version (Musee d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva, inv. no. 1932-12), which contains a false
signature at the lower left “Douw,” is still attributed to Dou but is widely thought to be by his
pupil Dominicus van Tol. See Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of theWorks of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on the Workof John Smith, 8 vols. (London, 1907–27), 1:400, no. 161, translated fromBeschreibendes
und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten höllandischen Maler des XVII.
Jahrhunderts, 10 vols. (Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28); Wilhelm Martin, Het Leven en de
Werken van Gerrit Dou (Leiden, 1901), no. 234; Wilhelm Martin, Gerard Dou, trans. Clara
Bell (London, 1902), no. 161; Wilhelm Martin, Gerard Dou, sa vie et son oeuvre: Étude surla peinture hollandaise et les marchaunds au dix-septième siècle (Paris, 1911), 182, no.
117; Wilhelm Martin, Gerard Dou, des Meisters Gemälde, Klassiker der Kunst (Stuttgart
and Berlin, 1913), 112; L. Hautecoeur, Catalogue de la galerie des beaux-arts (Geneva,
1948), no. 24; Ronni Baer, “The Paintings of Gerrit Dou (1613–1675),” 3 vols. (Ph.D. diss.,
New York University, 1990), Catalogue C, “Works of rejected attribution,” no. C71.
4. Wilhelm Martin believed that Dou made versions of his own compositions, which, in addition
to the copies made after him by imitators, turns the question of versions into a complicatedone. See Wilhelm Martin, Gerard Dou, des Meisters Gemälde, Klassiker der Kunst(Stuttgart and Berlin, 1913), xx.
5. While Martin dated the composition to ca. 1665, Christopher White argued that Dou was the© 2017 The Leiden CollectionYoung Woman in a Niche with a Parrot and Cage
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first to treat this subject matter and supposed that the painting probably dates before 1663,
the signed date of Frans van Mieris’s Woman Feeding a Parrot (FM-112). He notes that Van
Mieris clearly derived his inspiration from Dou. See Wilhelm Martin, Gerard Dou, desMeisters Gemälde, Klassiker der Kunst (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1913), 112; Christopher White,
The Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen: The Dutch Pictures (Cambridge
and New York, 1982), 70, no. 113.
6. Dou probably learned the technique during his early training with the glazer Bartholomeus
Dolendo; it is characteristic of Dou’s brushwork throughout his career. See Jørgen Wadum,“Dou Doesn’t Paint, Oh No, He Juggles with His Brush: Gerrit Dou—A RembrandtesqueFijnschilder,” in Art Matters: Netherlands Technical Studies in Art 1 (2002): 62–77.
7. Based on a photograph of a copy of the present painting that recently appeared on themarket (probably equivalent with the painting that appeared at Bonhams in 1965), it is clearthat the depiction of the apron, birdcage, and bird unfolded concurrently during the paintprocess. Ronni Baer, who provided a study photograph, suspects this version may be by afollower, possibly Pieter Cornelisz van Slingelandt (1640–91), one of Dou’s pupils (e-mailcorrespondence with Baer, 31 October 2012, and photograph kept on file, The Leiden
Collection, New York).
8. The author would like to thank Dr. Luke Hunter of Panthera and Dr. Nancy Clum and Dr.
Juan Cornejo of the Wildlife Conservation Society for their help in identifying the parrot
species. For a discussion of its geographical distribution and habits, see Joseph M.
Forshaw, Parrots of the World: An Identification Guide Illustrated by Frank Knight(Princeton and Oxford, 2006), 149, plate 112.
9. John Twilley notes that the possible removal of the yellow glazing can only be inferred but
not proven (unpublished written correspondence between the author and John Twilley,conservation scientist, October 2012, kept on file, The Leiden Collection, New York).
10. When Prince Johan Maurits returned from his seven-year sojourn in Brazil as the governor of
the Dutch colony between 1637 and 1644, he brought back with him countless exotic live
specimens and hundreds of zoological drawings and watercolors that illustrated theenormous wealth of exotic fauna he encountered there. Two pioneering illustrations of the
Amazona aestiva by Georg Marcgraf (1610–44) and Albert Eckhout (ca. 1610–65) weremade directly after live birds in Brazil during the artists’ seven-year expedition with theprince. The drawings were kept in the prince’s palace in The Hague upon his return in 1644
and were bound into a magnificent album known as the Libri picturati (now housed in the
Jagiellon University Library, Kraków) and given as a gift in 1652 to his friend Frederick
Willem, Elector Palatine of Brandenburg. See P. J. P. Whitehead and M. Boseman, A
Portrait of Dutch Seventeenth-Century Brazil: Animals, Plants, and People by the Artists ofJohan Maurits of Nassau (Amsterdam, 1989), 35–37; 40–41; 226, plate 13; Rebecca Parker
Brienen, “From Brazil to Europe: The Zoological Drawings of Albert Eckhout and Georg© 2017 The Leiden CollectionYoung Woman in a Niche with a Parrot and Cage
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Marcgraf,” in Early Modern Zoology: The Construction of Animals in Science, Literature,and the Visual Arts, ed. Karl A. E. Enenkel and Paul J. Smith, 2 vols. (Leiden and Boston,2007) 1:273–314, figs. 1 and 12. On the influence of these drawings on European art, seealso Quentin Buvelot, ed., Albert Eckhout: Dutch Artist in Brazil (Exh. cat. The Hague,
Mauritshuis) (Zwolle, 2004); Rebecca Parker Brienen, Visions of Savage Paradise: Albert
Eckhout, Court Painter in Colonial Dutch Brazil (Amsterdam, 2006); Thomas P. Campell,ed., Tapestry in the Baroque: Threads of Splendor (Exh. cat. New York, Metropolitan
Museum of Art; Madrid, Palacio Real) (New York and New Haven, 2007), esp. 390–97.
11. Wilma George, “Alive or Dead: Zoological Collections in the Seventeenth Century,” inThe
Origins of Museums: The Cabinet of Curiosities in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century
Europe, ed. Oligver Impey and Arthur MacGregor (Oxford, 1985), 184; P. Smit, ed.,Hendrik
Engel’s Alphabetical List of Dutch Zoological Cabinets and Menageries (Amsterdam,
1986); L. Robbins, Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots: Exotic Animals in EighteenthCentury Paris (Baltimore, 2002) 9–37; Eric Baratay and Elisabeth Hardouin-Fuiger, Zoo: A
History of Zoological Gardens in the West (London, 2002) 32–38.
12. Jacob Cats, Sinne-en minnebeelden “Dwanck, leert sanck. In dien de Papegay waer in het
wout gebleven,/ Sy hadde daer geleyt een woeft en beestigh leven;/ Maer nu sy door
bedwang by menschen is geleert,/ Soo komt’et datse spreeckt, en in het hof verkeert./ Is
iemant oyt gesint om eere na te jagen,/ Hy moet van eersten af, hy moet gewilligh dragen/ Al
wat de tucht gebiet. Bedwang ontrent de jeught/ Wort eere met’er tijdt, en niet als enckel
vreught.” (Rotterdam, 1627), no. 14
13. An illustration of Medghde-Wapen from Jacob Cats’s Houwelyck, Dat is de ganse
gelegentheyt des echten staets (Middleburg, 1625) depicts two elegant young women withparrots perched on their hands surrounded by other attributes. See Otto Naumann,Frans
van Mieris the Elder, 2 vols. (Doornspijk, 1981), 1:124; Wayne Franits, Paragons of Virtue:
Women and Domesticity in Seventeenth-Century Genre Painting Its Stylistic and Thematic
Evolution (New Haven and London, 1993), 20–26, fig. 7; Peter Sutton, Pieter de Hooch(Exh. cat. London, Dulwich Picture Gallery; Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum) (New Haven,1998), 68–75; Marjorie B. Wieseman, Caspar Netscher and Late Seventeenth-Century
Dutch Painting (Doornspijk, 2002), 69 n. 65; Adriaan Waiboer,Gabriel Metsu Life and Work:A Catalogue Raisonné (New Haven and London, 2012), 110, fig. 39.
14. Quentin Buvelot, “A Lady Feeding a Parrot,” in Frans van Mieris 1635–1681 (Exh. cat. The
Hague, Mauritshuis; Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art) (New Haven, 2005), 163,
165, fig. 33a; Wayne Franits, Paragons of Virtue: Women and Domesticity in SeventeenthCentury Genre Painting; Its Stylistic and Thematic Evolution (New Haven and London,1993), 22–26, 80–86. Other representations of women with parrots include Gabriel Metsu,
Woman with Sewing in a Niche , oil on panel, 28.5 x 22 cm, Pushkin Museum, Moscow;
Gabriel Metsu, Young Lady with a Parrot , oil on panel, 34 x 26 cm, Pushkin Museum,© 2017 The Leiden CollectionYoung Woman in a Niche with a Parrot and Cage
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Moscow, no. 693; Godfried Schalcken, Old Woman Feeding a Parrot , oil on panel, 27.6 x21.6 cm, The Leiden Collection, New York, no. GS-115; Pieter de Hooch, A Woman
Feeding a Parrot with a Man , signed, oil on canvas, 50.8 x 43.8 cm, present whereabouts
unknown; Pieter de Hooch, A Couple with a Parrot , ca. 1675–77, oil on canvas, 73 x 62 cm,
Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne, no. 239; Pieter de Hooch, Woman and Child with aParrot, signed and dated 1673, present whereabouts unknown.
15. As Eddy de Jongh has pointed out, the presence of birds in Dutch genre painting oftentimes
had sexual or erotic overtones, informed by the word vogelen, which was used as areference to both “bird catching” and “copulation.” See Eddy de Jongh, “A Bird’s-Eye View
of Erotica: Double Entendre in a Series of Seventeenth-Century Genre Scenes,” inQuestions of Meaning: Theme and Motif in Dutch Seventeenth-Century Painting , ed. andtrans. M. Hoyle (Leiden, 2000), 22–58, esp. 33, 43–46 (first published as “Erotica invogelsperspectif:

Dedubbelzinnigheid

van

een

reeks

zeventiende-eeuwse

genrevoorstellingen,” in Simiolus 3 [1968–69]); see also Eddy de Jongh, Tot Lering en
Vermaak: Betekenissen van Hollandse genrevoorstellingen uit de zeventiende eeuw (Exh.
cat. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Amsterdam, 1976), 226–27.
16. “Bly, door slaverny. Dooen ick mijn eygens was, en mochte alomme sweven,/ Doen leyd’ ickeven staegh een stil, en droevig leven;/ Maer na dat my de Min bracht in den soeten dwang,/
Doen weird mijn tonge los, en maeckte bly gesang;/ Ick lach, ick raes, ick speel, en schoon
ick sta gefloten,/ Geen tijt heeft my verveelt, geen ding heft my verdroten;/ O soete slaverny,en aengenaem gewelt!/ Het is een minnaer vreught, dat ander lieden quelt.” Jacob Cats,
Sinne-en minnebeelden (Rotterdam, 1627), no. 14.
17. “Als ick hebb’vry gheweest,/ ick hadde groot verlanghen/ Om vast te moghen zijn, ickmoeste zijn ghevanghen,/ Ick sach het minnen aen/ het was een lieflick spel/ Waer dat ick
henen sach/ het gingh al even wel:/ Ick sach de vryers aen/ ick sach haer soentjens gheven/
En soete prate-uytslaen; ick docht/ dat waer mijn leven./ My docht het gingh soo wel/ maer
als ick ben int perck/ Nu word’ ick eerst ghewaer hoe dat het gaet te werck.” Daniel
Heinsius, Emblemata amatoria (Amsterdam, 1608), no. 21.
18. Jacob Cats’s emblem, “Reperire, Perire Est” (To discover is to be undone), fromSinne-en
minnebeelden (Rotterdam, 1627), no. 21, illustrates a girl whose bird escapes from a box, ametaphor for her lost “honor.” For a discussion of the emblematic tradition, its transcription,and its depiction in painting, see Eddy de Jongh, “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. M. Hoyle (Leiden,
2000), 22–58, esp. 33, 43–46; Eddy de Jongh, Tot Lering en Vermaak: Betekenissen van
Hollandse genrevoorstellingen uit de zeventiende eeuw

(Exh. cat. Amsterdam,

Rijksmuseum) (Amsterdam, 1976), 224–27; Peter Sutton, Pieter de Hooch (exh. cat.,London, Dulwich Picture Gallery; Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum) (New Haven, 1998),© 2017 The Leiden CollectionYoung Woman in a Niche with a Parrot and Cage
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68–75.

ProvenancePossibly Johan de Bye, Leiden, by 1665.
(Sale, Galerie Charpentier, Paris, 7 June 1955, no. 34).
Private collection, Paris; by descent to a private collector, United States (sale, Sotheby’s,
New York, 8 June 2007, no. 212; [Otto Naumann Ltd., New York, 2007]).
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2007.

Exhibition History
Possibly Leiden, front room in the house of Johannes Hannot on the Breestraat, September
1665 [lent by Johan de Bye].
Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, “Dutch Treat,” 11 October 2011–6 January 2012[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, Musée du Louvre, “Vermeer et les maîtres de la peinture de genre / Vermeer and theMasters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry,” 20 February–22 May 2017; Dublin,
National Gallery of Ireland, 17 June–17 September 2017; Washington, National Gallery ofArt, 22 October–21 January 2018 [lent by the present owner].

References
Possibly Scheurleer, Lunsingh, Herman,Theodoor, Willemijn Fock, Cornelia and Van Dissel,
A. J. Het Rapenburg: Geschiedenis van een Leidse gracht. 10 vols. Leiden, 1986–92,
3b:486, no. 17.
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): 2–3, 12, 18–19, figs. 9a–b, 31, 47, 51.

© 2017 The Leiden CollectionYoung Woman in a Niche with a Parrot and Cage
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Versions
Versions and Copies
1. Attributed to Gerrit Dou, Young Girl with a Parrot , oil on panel, rounded top, 15.5 x 18 cm,
whereabouts unknown. Wilhelm Martin, Het Leven en de Werken van Gerrit Dou (Leiden,1901), 234; Exhibition of Old Masters (Exh. cat. St. Petersburg, 1909), no. 319; P. P.
Weiner, Les anciennes écoles de peinture dans les palais et collections priveés russes(Exh. cat. Brussels) (Brussels, 1910), 93, no. 319; Wilhelm Martin, Gerard Dou, desMeisters Gemälde, Klassiker der Kunst (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1913), no. 111; Ronni Baer,“The Paintings of Gerrit Dou (1613–1675),” 3 vols. (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1990),
Appendix A, under “Untraced Works.” Previously N. Gagarin Collection, St. Petersburg [N.
Beets, 1930, no. 39, but with rectangular panel, 22 x 16 cm].

2. After Gerrit Dou (?), Woman with a Parrot, signed “GDouw” lower left side, oil on panel,rounded top, 24.5 x 19 cm, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva, inv. no. 1932-12.Arti et
Amicitiae (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, 1872); Cornelis Hofstede de Groot,A Catalogue Raisonnéof the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on theWork 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 Paris, 1907–28), 1:400, no. 161; Wilhelm Martin,
Het Leven en de Werken van Gerrit Dou (Leiden, 1901), no. 234; Wilhelm Martin, Gerard
Dou, trans. Clara Bell (London, 1902), no. 161; Wilhelm Martin, Gerard Dou, sa vie et son
oeuvre: Étude sur la peinture hollandaise et les marchands au dix-septième siècle (Paris,
1911), 182, no. 117; Wilhelm Martin, Gerard Dou, des Meisters Gemälde, Klassiker der
Kunst (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1913), 112; Geneva Museum collection catalogue, 1948, no. 24;
Ronni Baer, “The Paintings of Gerrit Dou (1613–1675),” 3 vols. (Ph.D. diss., New York
University, 1990), Catalogue C, “Works of rejected attribution,” no. C71. Previously (sale,
Blondel de Gagny, Paris, 10 December 1776, no. 105; sale, Blondel d’Azincourt, Paris, 10
February 1783, no. 21; sale, Jacques Antoine van Dam, Dordrecht, 1 June 1829, no. 32;
sale, P. J. and B. van der Meulen, de Coblence, Amsterdam, 22 August 1850, no. 15); Arti[
et Amicitiae, 1872]; Crommelin Collection, Driebergen; (sale, Van Gogh, Amsterdam, 25
November 1913, no. 340); Smidt van Gelder, 1931; from whom bequeathed to the Muséed’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva.

3. After Gerrit Dou, Young Girl with a Parrot , oil on rectangular panel, 21.7 x 18.4 cm,
whereabouts unknown. Tentoonstelling (Exh. cat. Gemeente Museum, Arnhem, 1960–61),
no. 13; Catalogus Schilderijen- aquarellen en etsen, verzameling B. de Geus van den© 2017 The Leiden CollectionYoung Woman in a Niche with a Parrot and Cage
Page 12 of 13

Heuvel (Amsterdam, 1963), no. 13. Previously F. J. ten Bos, Almelo (sale, Paul Brandt,
Amsterdam, 1959, no. 5; sale, Sotheby’s Amsterdam, 26–27 April 1976); B. de Geus vanden Heuvel, Nieuwersluis, 1963.

4. After Gerrit Dou, A Young Girl with a Parrot , signed “GDouw” lower left side, oil on panel,rounded top, dimensions unknown, whereabouts unknown, possibly equivalent with Version
3, above.

5. After Gerrit Dou, Woman with a Parrot, oil on panel, 24 x 18.5 cm, whereabouts unknown.
Catalogus van de Collectie Goudstikker (1917), no. 19; Catalogus van de Collectie
Goudstikker (1919), no. 25. Previously E. R. Glückstatt, Copenhagen [Jacques Goudstikker,
Amsterdam, 1917–19].

6. After Gerrit Dou, A Woman with a Parrot, oil on panel, 24.1 x 18.4 cm, whereabouts
unknown. Previously (sale, Phillips, September 1965, no. 28).

7. After Gerrit Dou, Young Girl with a Parrot , oil on panel, 25 x 19.5 cm, whereabouts
unknown. Previously (sale, Brussels, Trussart, 19 November 1956, no. 29).

8. Possibly Dominicus van Tol, after Gerrit Dou, Young Girl with a Parrot , oil on panel, 26 x
18.5 cm, whereabouts unknown. Previously E. Burg-Berger, Weenen, 1935.

9. Pieter van Slingeland, after Gerrit Dou, A Young Girl with a Parrot , oil on panel, 22.5 x 16.5
cm, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, inv. no. KMSsp454. Two Golden Ages:
Masterpieces of Dutch and Danish Painting (Zwolle, 2001), 176, no. 70.

10. Attributed to Gerrit Dou, A Girl with a Parrot Cage at a Window , oil on panel, 36.5 x 29.8 cm,
The John G. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia, inv. no. 432.

11. After Gerrit Dou, A Young Girl with a Parrot , oil on panel, support and dimensions unknown,whereabouts unknown. Previously Dr. L. Weiler, Strasbourg 1963.

12. After Gerrit Dou, A Girl at a Window with a Parrot , oil on panel, 22.9 x 17.8 cm, possibly
equivalent with another version. British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United
Kingdom (Exh. cat. London, Pall Mall, 1854 and 1867). Previously Samuel Wheeler, Esq.,
London, 1854–67; (sale, Christie, Mason & Woods, London, 7 July 1900, no. 80).

Versions Notes

Technical Summary
The support is a vertically grained oak panel made from one board from a tree with a presumed
fell date after 1587.[1] The grain is slightly skewed to the vertical axis. There are some irregularnotches or gauges around the outer edges and there is a peg-hole on the left side of the reverse,© 2017 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Young Woman in a Niche with a Parrot and Cage
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indicating that the panel may have been reused timber or cut down from a larger panel.[2] The topof the panel is arched, following the shape of the painted niche in the composition. There are nobevels on the reverse, but the panel has not been thinned.
Dou prepared the panel with a thin, light ground, which does not obscure the texture of thewoodgrain. It can be seen around the edges of the panel and through the young woman’s thinly
painted apron. The ground is radio-opaque, highlighting the pattern of the woodgrain in the Xradiographs and indicating that it may contain a lead-based pigment.
The paint was thinly and smoothly applied. The paint of the curtain is slightly raised incomparison to that of the sitter’s hand, indicating the hand was painted first. The bars of the
birdcage were painted on top of the sitter’s apron, and the red curtain and the parrot werepainted on top of the birdcage.
The X-radiograph shows that the woman was originally painted with a broader smile, and her
proper right eye originally gazed upward. The X-radiograph also shows some undefined shapes
in the area of the curtain, indicating a compositional change in this area. Infrared photography at
780, 850, and 1000 nm indicates that the fingers of the woman’s hand holding the parrot wereoriginally more curled.
The painting is in excellent condition. The panel bears a slight convex warp when viewed fromthe front and there is a small vertical split extending 3.8 cm down from the right side of therounded edge. There are paint losses along the edges of the panel and there is damage along
the edge near the bottom right corner. The paint has become slightly transparent with age,especially in the sitter’s face and arm. It was treated in 2007–8.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. Ian Tyers, dendrochronological report, November 2010.
2. Ian Tyers, dendrochronological report, November 2010.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection