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Herring Seller and Boy
Gerrit Dou(Leiden 1613 – 1675 Leiden)

ca. 1664
oil on panel
43.5 x 34.5 cm
signed, lower center, below window: “GDou” (GD
in monogram)
GD-106

How to cite
Baer, Ronni. “Herring Seller and Boy” (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/ (archived December2023).
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.

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In this small panel, an old woman and a young boy, gesturing to a shallow tub of fish,

Comparative Figures

stand framed in an arched stone opening. Although the exact nature of their exchange
cannot be determined, they are apparently discussing the herring she holds in her righthand.[1] The boy’s blue felt hat and brown pij (frock) worn over a red woolen hemtrock(waistcoat) and white shirt identify him as a fisherboy.[2] Consequently, it appears thatthe boy has brought the fish for the old woman to sell; he’s the purveyor for rather
than the customer of this herring seller.[3] She sports a red jacket, blue apron, ruffledcollar, and white headdress of the type worn by many of the elderly women of acertain class that appear in Gerrit Dou’s genre scenes.[4] Her stern glance—is it
dissatisfaction?—allies her to the common stereotype of fishwives as raw, coarse
women.[5] It is tempting, therefore, to interpret the action in the painting as anillustration of the contemporaneous expression “to give someone a bokking (a smokedor salted herring),” which meant to shame them with a sharp remark.[6] Whatever thenature of the exchange between the boy and the woman, the disparity in their ages
and their physical proximity allow Dou to contrast the wrinkled skin of the elderlywith the smooth fresh face of youth.
The window surrounding the figures is a compositional device Dou developed toenhance the illusionistic character of his genre scenes. Here, it serves many functions.

Fig 1. Jost Amman, “Apotecarius. Der
Apotecker.” (The Pharmacist), in
Panoplia omnium illiberaliummechanicarum (Book of Trades),engraving, 148 x 90 mm, British
Museum, 1904,0206.103.14, ©
Trustees of the British Museum

It not only frames the two protagonists, but also provides a view to the interior of theshop while simultaneously defining the picture plane. On the window’s deep ledge lies
an assortment of still-life elements that display the artist’s astounding ability to rendereach texture, surface, reflective quality, and material with careful yet varied
brushwork visible only by attentive looking. Among these objects are a large head ofcabbage, the curled edges of its leaves echoing the ruff of the woman’s collar; a bunchof carrots, their greens rendered with bravura flicks of the brush; some spring onions;and a frayed piece of cloth. The items are positioned so that each one protrudes
beyond the ledge into the viewer’s space, blurring the distinction between the painted
and actual worlds. In addition to the illusionism and beautiful surfaces, the small
dimensions of Dou’s works were a ploy to attract, engage, and seduce the viewer.
The illusionistic effect in Herring Seller and Boy is heightened by the strong
illumination streaming in from the upper left—like a spotlight placed close to thefront of the picture. The lighting causes the objects on the sill to throw shadows onto

Fig 2. Gerrit Dou, Grocery Shop,
1647, oil on panel, 38.5 x 29 cm,
Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. no. 1215,
photo: Hervé Lewandowski, © RMNGrand Palais / Art Resource, NY

the wall below, thereby heightening their tactile quality. The distorted shadows of thescales hanging from a nail at right emphasize the strong, directional, and theatricalquality of the light. The “outside” wall below the scales is marked by carefully
observed cracks in the stone. Dou’s prominent signature is rendered as though it werechiseled into the wall below the ledge.
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The artist uses both light and handling to differentiate the foreground from thebackground elements. Whereas the figures in the foreground are carefully
delineated—every wrinkle and ruffle described—the women in the back are morecursorily painted, their features barely indicated, and their unspecified transaction
conveyed solely by the posture and proximity of their bodies. As X-radiographs
indicate, in addition to other adjustments, Dou made small changes to the placementof these figures while he was working.[7] A diffuse light envelops them from a second
light source emanating from the two rows of leaded windows in the left-hand wall of
the shop.[8]The format Dou chose is fitting for a shop scene, as it recalls the arch-shaped window
behind which several of the tradesmen are shown working in illustrations by Jost
Amman (1539–91) for the Ständebuch of 1568 (fig 1).[9] The parallel does not end

Fig 3. Gerrit Dou, A Poulterer’s Shop,
ca. 1679, oil on panel, 58 x 46 cm, The
National Gallery, London, Bought,
1871, inv. NG825, © National
Gallery, London / Art Resource, NY

there. Outside the craftsmen’s arch-shaped windows in these prints is often found atable pushed flush against the wall that functions as a ledge to display their wares.
Dou’s deep sill provides a comparable ledge, one that, as noted, displays his painterly
prowess and virtuosic craftsmanship.
The earliest dated genre painting in which Dou used an arched window is his Grocery
Shop of 1647 in the Musée du Louvre (fig 2), the first seventeenth-century Dutch
shop scene.[10] Although separated by nearly twenty years, Grocery Shop and Herring
Seller have many elements in common, including poppies, a ham hock and, beyond
them, candles suspended from the rafters. Scales, a basket of eggs, a pewter tankard(hanging from a shelf behind the eggs in Herring Seller and Boy and carried by theyoung boy in Grocery Shop), and shelving holding covered jars and boxes appear inboth paintings. In the Louvre picture, a cask similar to the one beneath the candles
in Herring Seller has a wooden tub atop it. The strong illumination from the upper left
is also comparable.

Fig 4. Gerrit Dou, Herring Seller, ca.
1650–55, oil on panel, 31 x 23 cm,
The Pushkin State Museum of Fine
Arts, Moscow

The construction of space in the two works is fundamentally different, however,showing the strides Dou made in rendering spatial recession as he matured as apainter. The form of Grocery Shop corresponds roughly to the window depicted.
Inside, a table is placed perpendicular to the window ledge, allowing the figures to bepositioned on either side of it. Despite the depth of the room, a young boy seems
awkwardly squeezed into an indeterminate space behind the servant girl. By contrast,in the later Herring Seller and Boy Dou uses the soft light, smaller scale, andmonochromatic color of the background figures to suggest the depth of the space.
The mise-en-scène, with the principal figures now placed close to the picture plane
and the subsidiary figures convincingly engaged at the back of the room, announces amore experienced painter.[11]The carefully described scene in the Leiden Collection painting does not, in fact,

Fig 5. Gerrit Dou, Herring Seller, ca.
1670–75, oil on panel, 41 x 30 cm,
The State Hermitage Museum, St.
Petersburg© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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correspond to what we know about the nature of seventeenth-century Dutch shops.
These stores tended to carry specific kinds of goods rather than offer the wide variety
of wares on display in Herring Seller and Boy. The vettewariër would have carriedbutter, ham and candles; the comenij sold dairy, eggs and meat products; and theapoteker would have used poppies to make syrup with narcotic properties.[12] Freshvegetables and fish were available at the market and from street peddlers.[13] At
market, some vendors sold their wares from a window; unlike the hawkers andpeddlers, these merchants were required to become members of the shopkeepers’
guild.[14] Shopkeeping, indeed, was a common way for a seventeenth-century woman,especially one from the middle class, to make a living: owning a shop required notechnical skills; women were tolerated in the shopkeepers’ guilds; and the traderequired only some initial financial capital.[15] Dou’s painting may allude to orconflate both the older practice of selling wares from a window and the newer type ofshop that specialized in carrying particular goods.
The earliest description of this painting appears in a manuscript catalogue by E.
Munich (1773–85) of works in the galleries and cabinets of the Imperial Palace in St.
Petersburg:
Gerard Douw.
N.° 534. La Marchande hollandaise.
Elle est vue à demi corps dans sa boutique garnie d’oignons, de carottes, d’une têtede chou rouge et d’un bacquet avec des harangs, dont elle en montre un à un
garçon qui semble en avoir grande envie. À la muraille du côté gauche en pendent
des balances et tout auprès un panier rempli d’oeufs; au plancher sont suspendus
des jambons et un trousseau de tête de pavots; derrière la marchande, dans la demiteinte, se distinguent deux femmes et contre le mur du fond des planchettes chargéesde flacons. Il est peint en 1664.
Cette pièce, que le Comte de Bruhl avait eu de l’Electeur de Bavière et que l’on peut
nommer à juste titre un Chef-d’oeuvre, a été gravé par Pierre Etienne Moitte àParis sous le nom indiqué.
Sur bois. haut 11. V. Large 7 ½. V.

This source notes that Count Brühl acquired the painting from the Elector of Bavaria;
that it is rightly called a masterpiece; that it was engraved by Pierre Etienne Moitte inParis; and that it was painted in 1664.[16] Although no date now appears on thepainting, the composition and execution are most directly comparable to Dou’s
Poulterer’s Shop in the National Gallery, London, dating to around 1665–70(fig 3).
[17]

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Munich’s catalogue, is therefore most likely.
The Leiden Collection painting is not the sole representation of the subject of aherring seller in Dou’s art, though it is the most elaborate and the only one that shows
the shopkeeper buying rather than selling fish. The Herring Seller in the Pushkin fromabout 1650–55 (fig 4) depicts only two figures.[18] They are placed close to the
picture plane, standing next to each other in a window. The young boy in a broadbrimmed hat grasps the fish tub and points into it while looking at the old woman.
She, in turn, displays a herring with one hand and holds the other palm outward, as
though expecting payment. Onions, herring’s traditional accompaniment, are the only
still-life elements on the window sill. Dou’s other rendition of the theme, now in the
Hermitage (fig 5), is a late work, dating about 1670–75.[19] Here, an old woman and aberet-wearing boy, placed much farther back in space, are joined by a snarling dog
splayed on the window ledge. This painting, which also includes the basket of eggs,
scales, tattered cloth, and tub of herring found in the Leiden Collection picture,
actually depicts the boy paying the woman for the herring she holds. Although notconceived as a series, these three compositions featuring a transaction between an old
woman and a boy around a herring show three distinct episodes—delivering,choosing, and paying for herring—three pictorial solutions, and three moments in theartist’s career.
Dou’s Herring Seller and Boy appears to have been a very popular composition, much
more so than the other two related images.[20] Some twenty-three versions and copiesof the work are known. Moitte’s mid-eighteenth-century engraving of the painting,made when it was in the collection of Count Brühl, was evidently used as the modelfor those copies of the painting that reproduce the subject in reverse.[21]- Ronni Baer, 2017

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Endnotes
1. Herring was extremely important to the Dutch economy of the seventeenth century both as an exportindustry and for local consumption. It was used creatively as a subject by Dutch artists, serving, forexample, as the interpretive pivot of a still life by Joseph de Bray (In Praise of Pickled Herring, 1656,
Gemäldegalerie, Dresden) and a portrait by Frans Hals (Portrait of Pieter Cornelisz van der Morsch,
1616, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh); further, P. J. J. van Thiel, “Frans Hals’ portret van de
Leidese rederijkersnar Pieter Cornelisz. van der Morsch, alias Piero,” Oud Holland 76 [1961]: 153–72).
Dou’s genre paintings featuring herring likely inspired artists with Leiden connections, such as Gabriel
Metsu, Godefridus Schalcken, and Quiringh van Brekelenkam, to treat the theme as well.
2. E-mail correspondence from Marieke de Winkel to the author, 13 August 2012. His clothing iscomparable to that worn by Frans Hals’s fisherboys. Furthermore, a similar hat is worn by the boy with apipe who appears behind the fish seller in Jan Steen’s Old Man Selling Fish in Bridgewater House(Franklin Robinson, Gabriel Metsu: A Study of His Place in Dutch Genre Painting of the Golden Age[New York, 1974], fig. 90) and by the old mussel man in Hendrick Sorgh’s Fish Market in the
Rijksmuseum (Liesbeth M. Helmus, ed., Fish: Still Lifes by Dutch and Flemish Masters [Exh. cat.
Utrecht, Centraal Museum; Helsinki, Amos Anderson Art Museum] [Utrecht, 2004], no. 60).
3. There is no indication of a monetary transaction; it is therefore highly unlikely that he wants a herring.
The wooden vessel to which he gestures contains a clearly delineated herring as well as painted dots ofwhite, reddish-taupe, and gray, implying the glistening skins of others. Such vessels were used not only
to keep fish alive for some time but also as a measure; see Eddy de Jongh, “The Symbolism of Fish,
Fisherman, Fishing Gear, and the Catch,” in Fish: Still Lifes by Dutch and Flemish Masters, ed. Liesbeth
M. Helmus (Exh. cat. Utrecht, Centraal Museum; Helsinki, Amos Anderson Art Museum) (Utrecht,
2004), 333.
4. See Ronni Baer, “The Paintings of Gerrit Dou (1613–1675),” 3 vols. (PhD diss. New York University,1990), no. 58 (the old woman with a basket listening to The Quack); no 94 (Old Woman with a Jug at a
Window); no. 98 (the old woman who brings the urine sample to The Doctor in Copenhagen).
5. Elizabeth Honig, “Quirijn Gerritsz. van Brekelenkam, De Visverkoopster,” in Leidse Fijnschilders: vanGerrit Dou tot Frans van Mieris de Jonge, 1630–1760, ed. Eric Jan Sluijter, Marlies Enklaar, and Paul
Nieuwenhuizen (Exh. cat. Leiden, Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) (Zwolle, 1988), no. 2.
6. For this expression, see Pieter J. J. van Thiel, “Frans Hals’ portret van de Leidese rederijkersnar Pieter
Cornelisz. van der Morsch, alias Piero,” Oud Holland 76 (1961): 153–72.
7. He also seems to have changed the shape of the old woman’s outer sleeve and the position of the tankard
in the right background. Infrared reflectography reveals broad blocking-in strokes, especially in the oldwoman’s apron. I am grateful to Annette Rupprecht for discussing the results of her 2012 technicalexamination of the Leiden Collection painting with me. These findings shed light on the artist’s working© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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method, which is important considering that no compositional drawings by Dou are known. For more on
Dou’s working methods, see Ronni Baer, “The Life and Art of Gerrit Dou,” 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) (Zwolle., 2000),
39–40; Annetje Boersma, “Dou’s Painting Technique,” in Gerrit Dou, 1613–1675: Master Painter in theAge of Rembrandt (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art; London, Dulwich Picture
Gallery; The Hague, Mauritshuis) (Zwolle, 2000), 54–63; Jørgen Wadum, “Dou Doesn’t Paint, Oh No,
He Juggles with His Brush: Gerrit Dou, a Rembrandtesque ‘Fijnschilder,’” Art Matters: Nederlands
Technical Studies in Art 1 (2002): 62–77; Ronni Baer, “A Dou for Boston,” in Collected Opinions: Essays
on Netherlandish Art in Honour of Alfred Bader, ed. Volker Manuth and Axel Rüger (London, 2004),
21–22.
8. The same combination of lighting—spotlight for the foreground figure and light from an adjacentwindow for the background—occurs first in Dou’s painting Woman with Fruit, dated 1657, at
Waddesdon Manor (Ronni Baer, “The Paintings of Gerrit Dou [1613–1675],” 3 vols. [PhD diss. New
York University, 1990], no. 70). In the Leiden Collection painting, however, the soft atmospheric effectof the second light source may reflect Dou’s awareness of contemporary artistic production in Delft,
especially that of De Hooch and Vermeer. See further Ronni Baer, “Dou and the Delft Connection,” inFace Book: Studies on Dutch and Flemish Portraiture of the 16th–18th Centuries: Liber Amicorium
Presented to Rudolf E.O. Ekkart on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday, ed. Edwin Buijsen, Charles
Dumas, and Volker Manuth (Leiden, 2012), 279–84.
9. Eric Jan Sluijter (“Gerrit Dou, Vioolspeler,” in Leidse Fijnschilders: Van Gerrit Dou tot Frans van Mieris
de Jonge, 1630–1760, ed. Eric Jan Sluijter, Marlies Enklaar, and Paul Nieuwenhuizen [Exh. cat. Leiden,
Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal] [Zwolle, 1988], no. 10, n. 3) noted the resemblance of Dou’s“windows” to Amman’s illustrations of the trades and remarked that Amman’s series would have been
known and appreciated—given Jan Jorisz van Vliet’s early seventeenth-century print series of the
trades—in Dou’s Leiden artistic circles. Amman’s pharmacist (20), whose confections and remedies incanisters of different sizes and shapes line the wall of his shop, is most pertinent to this discussion (seeFigure 1).
10. Ronni Baer, “The Paintings of Gerrit Dou (1613–1675),” 3 vols. (PhD diss. New York University,1990), no. 47.
11. The marked contrast between the figures in the foreground and background, as well as the dramatic
lighting and frozen action, may indicate a connection to contemporary rederijker theater, in which theprotagonist delivered his soliloquy from the apron while the action took place behind him on the stage.
See Stephanie Sonntag, Ein “Schau-spiel” der Malkunst: Das Fensterbild in der holländischen Malerei des17. und 18. Jahrhunderts (Munich, 2006), 229–34. I do not agree, however, with Sonntag’s assessment(163–64) that this painting has sexual connotations.
12. A. C. J. de Vrankrijker, Mensen, leven en werken in de Gouden Eeuw (The Hague, 1981), 79; “Frans van
Mieris de Jonge, De apotheek,” in Leidse Fijnschilders: van Gerrit Dou tot Frans van Mieris de Jonge,© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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1630–1760, ed. Eric Jan Sluijter, Marlies Enklaar, and Paul Nieuwenhuizen (Exh. cat. Leiden, Stedelijk
Museum De Lakenhal) (Zwolle, 1988), no. 31.
13. The citizens of Dou’s hometown of Leiden were especially proud of their fish market, located behindthe city hall on the quays of the Nieuwe Rijn. The town chronicler, Jan Orlers, described how the fish
were brought there “frequently with such number and abundance that it is a delight to behold”;
Beschrijving der Stadt Leyden (Leiden and Delft, 1641), 275. According to Bianca du Mortier, “eightyone percent of the stallholders in the [Leiden] fish market were women, and this figure rose to 96
percent in the Penshal, a market where meat products such as bacon, sausages, and salt meat were sold”;“Costumes in Gabriel Metsu’s Paintings,” in Gabriel Metsu: Rediscovered Master of the Dutch Golden
Age, ed. Adriaan E. Waiboer (Exh. cat. Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum;Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art) (New Haven, 2010), 140. In early modern Leiden, thepermits for stall holding or street vending were issued by the city government, often in cooperation withthe guild that governed the particular trade; see Danielle van den Heuvel, Women and Entrepreneurship:
Female Traders in the Northern Netherlands, c. 1580–1815 (Amsterdam, 2007), 92-3. According to Van
den Heuvel, as opposed to the sale of textiles or hardware, the sale of meat, fish, and vegetables in theseventeenth century stayed in the marketplace and did not transfer to shops. This is corroborated by Jande Vries, who reported that retail shops gained widespread acceptance only by about 1700, at whichtime they supplemented markets and hawkers and peddlers; The Economy of Europe in an Age of
Crisis, 1600–1750 (Cambridge, Mass., 1976), 187.
14. Danielle van den Heuvel, Women and Entrepreneurship: Female Traders in the Northern Netherlands, c.
1580–1815 (Amsterdam, 2007), 149.
15. Historians disagree about the predominant marital status of these female shopkeepers. Van den Heuvel
remarks that “Van Deursen argues that they were mainly widows, Wijsenbeek suggests that the majorityof [these] women were single, and Van Nierop, De Vries and Van der Woude, and Vos classify it as atrade that was (also) very often practised by married women.” Danielle van den Heuvel, Women and
Entrepreneurship: Female Traders in the Northern Netherlands, c. 1580–1815 (Amsterdam, 2007), 137 n.
3.
16. This handwritten catalogue is housed in The Hermitage. I am indebted to Irina Sokolova for thisinformation.
17. Ronni Baer, “The Paintings of Gerrit Dou (1613–1675),” 3 vols. (PhD diss. New York University,1990), no. 117.
18. Ronni Baer, “The Paintings of Gerrit Dou (1613–1675),” 3 vols. (PhD diss. New York University,1990), no. 60.
19. Ronni Baer, “The Paintings of Gerrit Dou (1613–1675),” 3 vols. (PhD diss. New York University,1990), no. 126.
20. It would be interesting to explore whether there is a correlation between those of Dou’s paintings thatwere reproduced in print and those of his paintings that are known in numerous copies. Not every© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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painting of which a print was made is known in numerous copies, but there are many versions andcopies of Violinist in the Liechtenstein Princely Collections (Ronni Baer, “The Paintings of Gerrit Dou[1613–1675],” 3 vols. [PhD diss. New York University, 1990], no. 63) and Old Woman Watering
Flowers in Vienna (Ronni Baer, “The Paintings of Gerrit Dou [1613–1675],” 3 vols. [PhD diss. New
York University, 1990], no. 94), both of which were known through prints.
21. Although the print was published in Dresden, Moitte executed the engraving in Paris. See Vivian Lee
Atwater, “A Catalogue and Analysis of Eighteenth-Century French Prints after Netherlandish Baroque
Paintings,” 3 vols (PhD diss. University of Washington, 1988), 656 (no. 358).

Provenance
Probably Maximilian II Emanuel (1679–1726), Elector of Bavaria.
Count Heinrich von Brühl (1700–63), Chancellor of Saxony, by 1750.
Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia (1729–96), by 1769.[1]By gift to Count Vladimir Grigorievich Orlov (1743–1831); by descent to his grandson Count Vladimir
Petrovich Orlov-Davydov (1809–82); by descent to his son Count Anatoli Vladimirovich OrlovDavydov (d. 1905), St. Petersburg, until 1905 [Count Orloff Davidoff, Petrograd].
Henry Blank, Newark, by 1929, until 1940s.
Sidney van den Bergh, Wassenaar, by 1952.
Charles Napper (1910–72), London; [to Duits & Co., Ltd. London, for £8,500; to Robert Edgar, April
1961, for £9,000].
Private collection (Robert Edgar), England; (sale, London, Christie’s, 6 July 2005, no. 93 (as by follower
of Dou), withdrawn; sale, London, Christie’s, 6 July 2006, no. 7 [Johnny van Haeften, London, 2006]).
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2006.

Provenance Notes

1. Frans van Mieris’s A Young Woman Reading a Letter, now in The Leiden Collection, was also formerlyin the collection of Catherine the Great.

Exhibition History
Detroit Institute of Arts, “Dutch Genre and Landscape Paintings of the Seventeenth Century,” 16October–10 November 1929, no. 21 [lent by Mr. Henry Blank, Newark].
Delft, Museum het Prinsenhof, “Kersttentoonstelling, Nederlandse meesters uit particulier bezit,” 21© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Herring Seller and Boy
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December 1952–1 February 1953, no. 21 [lent by Sidney van den Bergh].
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].
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, on loan with the permanent collection, September 2014–May
2016 [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 present
owner].
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces
from The Leiden Collection,” 28 March 2018–22 July 2018 [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 present
owner].

References
Von Munich, Ernst. Catalogue raisonné des tableaux qui se trouve dans les Galeries et dans les Cabinets
du Palais Imperial de St-Pétersbourg commencé en 1773 et continué jusqu’en 1785. Manuscript, 3 vols.
Hermitage Archives, St. Petersburg, 1773–85, no. 534.
Smith, John. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French
Painters. 9 vols. London, 1829–42, 1:9, no. 24.
Martin, Willem. “Het leven en de werken van Gerrit Dou beschouwd in verband met het schilderslevenvan zijn tijd.” PhD diss. Universiteit Leiden. Leiden, 1901, 222, no. 256a.
Martin, Wilhelm. Gerard Dou. Translated by Clara Bell. London, 1902, 140, no. 186.
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. Edited and translated by Edward G. Hawke. 8
vols. London, 1907–28, 1: 412, no. 194. Originally published as Beschreibendes und kritisches
Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten höllandischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts. 10 vols.
Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28.
Martin, Wilhelm. Gerard Dou, des Meisters Gemälde in 247 Abbildungen. Klassiker der Kunst in© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Gesamtasugaben 24. Stuttgart and Berlin, 1913, 129.
Valentiner, Wilhelm R. Dutch Genre and Landscape Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. [Introduction
by Wilhelm Valentiner.] Exh. cat. Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1929, xiii, no. 21.
“Dutch Genre and Landscape Painting.” American Magazine of Art 20 (December 1929): 696.
Heil, W. “Zwei amerikanische Ausstellungen.” Pantheon 5 (1930): 34.
Museum het Prinsenhof. Kersttentoonstelling, Nederlandse meesters uit particulier bezit. Exh. cat. Delft,
Museum het Prinsenhof. Delft, 1952, 14–15, no. 21.
Baer, Ronni. “The Paintings of Gerrit Dou (1613–1675).” PhD diss. New York University, 1990,
Appendix A, untraced works of undetermined attribution.
Surh, Dominique, Ilona van Tuinen, and John Twilley. “Insights from Technical Analysis on a Group of
Paintings by Gerrit Dou in the Leiden Collection.” JHNA 6, no. 1 (Winter 2014): 2–5, 12, 18–19, figs.
13a, 13b, 30, 46. DOI:10.5092/jhna.2014.6.1.3
Aono, Junko. Confronting the Golden Age: Imitation and Innovation in Dutch Genre Painting.
Amsterdam, 2015, 88, no. 66.
Sevcik, Anja K. ed. Schalcken – Gemalte Verführung. Exh. cat. Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum;
Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum. Stuttgart, 2015, 172, fig. 31.1.
Ebert, Anja. “Metaphern, Wortspiele und Bildspiele in der niederländischen Genremalerei des 17.
Jahrhunderts.” Figurationen: gender literatur kultur 18 (2017): 56, abb. 3.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Rembrandt and His Time: China and the Dutch Republic in the Golden Age.” In
Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 10;14, fig. 6. Translated by Li Ying. Exh. cat. Beijing, National Museum of China. Beijing, 2017. A
slightly revised version of this essay appears in Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund. Shanghai,
2017, 32, fig. 6.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Herring Seller and Boy.” In Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The
Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 78; 179, no. 29. 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, 98–99.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “The Leiden Collection and the Dutch Golden Age.” In The Age of Rembrandt
and Vermeer: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova. Translated by Daria
Babich and Daria Kuzina, 24; 32. Exh. cat. Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts; St.
Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Moscow, 2018.
Sokolova, Irina. “Картины лейденских мастеров тонкой живописи в собрании Императорского
Эрмитажа” [Works by the Leiden Masters of Fine Painting in the collection of The Imperial
Hermitage]. In The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by
Polina Lyubimova, 58, fig. 6. Translated by Daria Babich and Daria Kuzina. Exh. cat. Moscow, The© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Herring Seller and Boy
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Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts; St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Moscow, 2018.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Herring Seller and Boy.” In The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces of
The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 94–95; 234, no. 14. Translated by Daria Babich andDaria Kuzina. Exh. cat. Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts; St. Petersburg, The State
Hermitage Museum. Moscow, 2018.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “The Leiden Collection and the Dutch Golden Age.” In Rembrandt, Vermeer andthe Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Edited by
Blaise Ducos and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 29, n. 21. Exh. cat. Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London,
2019. [Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]
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, 131–2, no. 58. [Exhibition catalogue also published in French and Arabic.]
Coutré, Jacquelyn N. “Rembrandus Hermanni Leydensis: Rembrandt, son of Harmen, of Leiden.” In
Leiden circa 1630: Rembrandt Emerges. Edited by Jacquelyn N. Coutré, 29, no. 21. Exh. cat. Kingston,Agnes Etherington; Edmonton, Art Gallery of Alberta; Hamilton, Art Gallery of Hamilton. Kingston,
2019.

Versions
Engraved
1. Pierre-Étienne Moitte (1722–80), La marchande hollandaise (plate 22 from “Recueil d’estampes gravéesd’après les tableaux de la galerie de S. E. M. le Comte de Brühl”), ca. 1754, engraving, 5.14 x 3.5 cm,
British Museum, London.

Versions and Copies
1. After Gerrit Dou, The Herring Seller and Boy, oil on copper, 40.6 x 30.5 cm, signed G. Dou,
Chatsworth, Collection of the Duke of Devonshire.

2. After Gerrit Dou, The Fishwife, oil on canvas, 45.7 x 35.4 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Johnson
Collection, no. 548, inv. 1879.

3. Attributed to Samuel van Hoogstraten, A Herring Woman and a Boy, oil on panel, 17 ¼ x 14 ½ inches,
whereabouts unknown (formerly Barbier Collection, Brussels).

4. After Gerrit Dou, The Herring Seller and Boy, London, private collection, possibly equivalent to Version
1.

5. After Gerrit Dou, The Herring Seller and Boy, oil on panel, 42.5 x 33.5 cm, whereabouts unknown(formerly in a private collection, Düsseldorf).
© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Herring Seller and Boy
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6. After Gerrit Dou, The Herring Seller and Boy, inscribed “G Dow” lower right, support unknown,whereabouts unknown (formerly or still in the Biss Collection, Cardiff).

7. After Gerrit Dou, The Herring Seller and Boy, signed “G Douw 1665” lower right, oil on panel, 44.2 x
34.5 cm, Wawel Castle, Kraków, inv. no. 946.

8. After Gerrit Dou, The Herring Seller and Boy, signed and dated “G. Dou 1671,” oil on copper, 45 x 34
cm (formerly in the Hommel Collection, Zurich).

9. After Gerrit Dou, The Herring Seller and Boy, oil on copper, 44 x 35 cm, whereabouts unknown(formerly sale, Vienna, Dorotheum, no date, no. 799).

10. After Gerrit Dou, The Herring Seller and Boy, oil on panel, 46 x 35.5 cm, whereabouts unknown(formerly sale, London, Sotheby’s, 6 July 1994, no. 188).

11. Attributed to P. van Slingeland, The Herring Seller and Boy, oil on canvas, 45 x 36 cm, whereabouts
unknown (formerly with T. Hermsen, The Hague, 1936).

12. Attributed to Dominicus van Tol, The Herring Seller and Boy, oil on panel, 47 x 36 cm, whereabouts
unknown (formerly sale, Van Marle & Bignell, The Hague, 28 April 1942, no. 249).

13. After Gerrit Dou, The Herring Seller and Boy, support unknown, whereabouts unknown.
14. After Gerrit Dou, The Herring Seller and Boy, support unknown, whereabouts unknown.
15. After Gerrit Dou attributed to the School of Frans van Mieris the Elder, The Herring Seller and Boy, oilon canvas, 38 x 48 cm, whereabouts unknown.

16. After Gerrit Dou, The Herring Seller and Boy, 45 x 37 cm, whereabouts unknown.
17. After Gerrit Dou, The Herring Seller and Boy, support unknown, whereabouts unknown.
18. After Gerrit Dou, The Herring Seller and Boy, oil on panel, 34.5 x 25.5 cm, signed, whereabouts
unknown (formerly Wilms Collection, 1961).

19. After Gerrit Dou, The Herring Seller and Boy, oil on canvas, dated 1684, whereabouts unknown(formerly W. M. de Vries, Aalst, North Brabant, 1973).

20. After Gerrit Dou, The Shop Window, oil on panel, 47 x 36 cm, signed, whereabouts unknown (formerly
sale, Glerum, Amsterdam, 9 November 1998, no. 63).

21. Attributed to G. Marsellli, A Fish and Vegetable Seller at a Niche, signed “G. Marselli,” oil on panel, 45.8
x 37.5 cm, whereabouts unknown (formerly sale, London, Christie’s, 26 September 1996, no. 170).

22. After Gerrit Dou, An Old Woman Offering Herring to a Youth at a Niche, oil on panel, 50 x 38.5 cm,
whereabouts unknown (formerly sale, Christie’s, Amsterdam, 8 October 1994, no. 10).

23. After Gerrit Dou, An Old Woman Offering Herring to a Youth at a Niche, oil on panel, 50 x 38.5 cm,
whereabouts unknown (formerly sale, Christie’s, Amsterdam, 8 October 1994, no. 10).

Technical Summary© 2024 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Herring Seller and Boy
Page 15 of 15

The support is a vertically grained wood panel made from a single plank. When viewed from the front, thethickness of the panel tapers from 0.8 cm on the left to 0.4 cm on the right. The back of the panel has been
beveled on the top, bottom, and thicker left side. It appears that the thinner right edge was never beveled.
The panel has a very slight convex warp when viewed from the front. Narrow wooden strips have been
attached to all four edges. On the left and right sides, the grain of the strips is vertical, but on the top andbottom the grain is horizontal.
The white ground was thinly and evenly applied. In the X-radiograph it is radio-opaque and it accentuates thewoodgrain. The paint has been built up in successive thin layers of light over dark. It was applied thinly andsmoothly wet-into-wet. Infrared photographs[1] and the X-radiograph show several artist’s changes. The
positions of the two figures in the background were adjusted slightly; the folds of the herring seller’s skirt
were changed and her proper left sleeve was originally larger and more angular; and there was a bell-shaped
object below the scale hanging on the right side of the niche. In addition, a pentimento and a corresponding
shape in the X-radiograph just below the artist’s signature indicate that the signature was originally depicted
on a painted piece of paper with the upper corners curled down.
The painting is in good condition, though the paint bears a pronounced craquelure pattern. Drying cracks inthe background inside the arch make this area difficult to read. There is also some shrinkage in the paint inpatches along the left side of the arch and below the signature. There is a loss to the ground and paint in theupper left corner and a depression in the paint at the top of the arch.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. Infrared photographs were taken at 780, 850, and 1000 nm.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection