Goat in a Landscape
Gerrit Dou(Leiden 1613 – 1675 Leiden)

ca. 1660–65
oil on panel
19.6 x 24.9 cm
signed in brown paint on a rock, lower center:“GDOU” (GD in ligature)
GD-114© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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How to cite
Surh, Dominique. “Goat in a Landscape” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd ed. Edited by Arthur
K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/a-landscape-with-a-goat/(archived May 2020).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive ismanaged by a permanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative
occurs.

Few goats have ever been featured as the primary subject of a painting, andComparative Figurescertainly none has the whimsical personality of this one. Part of the goat’s
charm as it looks out at the viewer with a combination of curiosity andpatience, is its lackadaisical pose, with one front leg stretched out and one
bent back. This unusual animal, which has black wool covering its head andneck and white on the rest of its body, is not a figment of Gerrit Dou’s
imagination but an actual breed known as the Bagot Goat. How Dou cameacross such an exotic beast, which roamed the English countryside near
Staffordshire, is not known, but its fascinating appearance clearly intrigued
him and must have induced him to create this intriguing small panel
painting.[1]Fig 1. Detail of infrared
photograph of GD-114, showing
the changes made around theposition of the goat’s headDou undoubtedly based this image of a goat on a live model, but he also
thought carefully about how he wanted the goat to appear in his painting. Xradiographs and infrared reflectograms indicate that he initially depicted thehead in profile and then changed it to a frontal view during the paint process[(fig 1) and (fig 2)].[2] In devising the goat’s pose, Dou seems also to haveconsulted an engraving of a recumbent goat (although of a different breed)by Marcus de Bije (1639–ca. 1690) (fig 3). The goat in De Bije’s print, basedon a drawing by Paulus Potter (1625–54), also has one leg extended andFig 2. X-radiograph of GD-114

one bent back.[3]Dou situated the goat in a clearing between a gnarly tree and a large
burdock plant,[4] an evocative landscape setting that indicates he was not© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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only interested in portraying this specific animal, but also in alluding tobroader thematic concerns related to the traditional associations of a goatwith lust and promiscuity. This interest is evident in the amorous scene of a
shepherd and shepherdess that Dou introduced on the distant hillside. Dou
based this figural grouping on Pastoral Couple with Goats, an engraving by
Boetius Bolswert (ca. 1580–1633) after a design by Abraham Bloemaert(1566–1651), in which a half-nude shepherd is also shown resting his headon his left hand as he embraces his female companion near a herd of goats(fig 4). The burdock plant serves as a thematic counterpart to this ancillary
scene, for its large vigorous leaves symbolize fecundity and reinforce thescene’s underlying theme of carnal desire.[5]Fig 3. Marcus de Bije after Paulus
Potter, Recumbent Goat, 1654–88,
engraving, 117 x 147
mm, Museum Boijmans van
Beuningen, Rotterdam, inv. BdH
1138 (PK), photo: Studio Tromp,
Rotterdam

The associations of the goat with lust and promiscuity, which go back toclassical antiquity, were also evident in the writings of Karel van Mander(1548–1606). In his Het Schilder-Boeck of 1604, Van Mander described thegoat as unchaste and ruinous, likening this animal, which bites off anddestroys young green buds of plants, to a whore who ruins young
men.[6] Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617) alluded to the symbolism of lust
associated with goats in his 1616 Fall of Man in the National Gallery of Art,
Washington (fig 5).[7] The goat also appears as a sign of carnal desire inpastoral landscapes such as Paris and Oenone, 1619, by Pieter Lastman(1583–1633), in which a shepherd gropes his bare-breasted companion (fig6).[8] Pieter Quast (1605/6–47) makes this allusion even more explicit in his

Fig 4. Boetius Bolswert after
Abraham Bloemaert, Pastoral
Couple with Goats, 1611,
engraving, 113 x 135 mm, The
British Museum, London,
inv. D,7.151AN457100001, ©
Trustees of the British Museum

Peasant Interior by depicting a reclining goat next to lovers rolling in thehay.[9]Dou probably painted Goat in a Landscape during the first half of the 1660s,
when he executed a number of single-figure nude scenes with similarlandscape features.[10] One closely related example is Nude Woman
Bather from ca. 1660–65 in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, in which abarren tree trunk likewise frames the scene to one side.[11] He certainly
executed it by 1665, when it was included in an exhibition of twenty-seven ofDou’s paintings owned by the distinguished Leiden collector Johande Bye.[12] The painting is listed as one of twenty-two works each displayed

Fig 5. Hendrick Goltzius, Fall ofMan, 1616, oil on canvas, 104.5 x
138.4 cm, National Gallery of Art,
Washington D.C., Patrons’
Permanent Fund, 1996.34.1

in a case (kas). Some of these cases must have opened with wings like a
triptych, while others probably had a sliding lid; some of the covers of thesecontainers were painted with still life images.[13] Such a case would havecompelled the viewer to come close to the painting to open its doors. The
small-scale format and meticulous finish of Dou’s paintings continue to invite
this type of visual intimacy today.[14]Fig 6. Pieter Lastman, Paris andOenone, 1619, oil on panel, 48.9 x© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Among the works in De Bye’s collection—which included market scenes,
candlelit interiors, nude figures and self-portraits—are two paintings in the
Leiden Collection dating from the early 1660s: not only Goat in a

71.4 cm, Worcester Art Museum,Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John Adam,
inv. no. 1984.39. Image ©
Worcester Art Museum, all rights
reserved

Landscape but also Young Woman in a Niche with a Parrot and Cage
(GD-105). Interestingly, both of these paintings contain commentaries onhuman sexuality that are conjoined in an engraving that Jacob Matham(1571–1631), made in the 1580s after a design by Goltzius. Matham’s print,
Libido (fig 7), depicts a small bird perched on the finger of a half-nude young
woman as she walks next to a goat.[15] It is quite possible that Dou and De
Bye enjoyed this iconographic link between these two paintings, and broughtthem together as a delightful reference to the pervasive force of sexualdesire in nature.

- Domique Surh, 2017

Fig 7. Jacob Matham after
Hendrick Goltzius, Libido(Luxuria), 1585–89, engraving,
216 x 144 mm,
Rijksprentenkabinet,
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. RPP-OB-27.227© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Endnotes

1. Dou painted two other works that focus on a single animal: Cat Crouching on the Ledge of an
Artist’s Atelier (GD-108), and A Sleeping Dog in the Van Otterloo Collection. For a fullreference list on the Cat, see GD-108; on the Dog, see Frederik J. Duparc, “Sleeping Dog,”
in Golden Dutch and Flemish Masterworks from the Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo
Collection (Exh. cat. Salem, Peabody Essex Museum; San Francisco, Fine Arts Museum of
San Francisco; Houston, Museum of Fine Arts) (New Haven), 131–33, no. 19. Another fouranimal subjects are known only through eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sources. See
Ronni Baer, “The Paintings of Gerrit Dou (1613–1675),” 3 vols. (PhD diss. New York
University, 1990), Appendix A-12: A Billy Goat and Four She-Goats, The Watchdog, and A
Butterfly; not mentioned by Baer is a work given to Dou, A Dead Rabbit, exhibited in
Manchester in 1857, from the collection of R. Napier; see Willliam Thoré Bürger, Trésors
d’art exposés à Manchester en 1857 et provenant des collections royales, des collections
publiques et des collections particulis la Grande-Bretagne (Paris, 1857), 64, no. 908; Cornelis
Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Paintersof the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith, ed. and trans. Edward G.
Hawke, 8 vols. (London, 1907–28), originally published as Beschreibendes und kritisches
Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten höllandischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, 10
vols. (Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28), 1: 462, no. 383.
2. See Technical Summary and John Twilley, “Analysis and Materials Science for the
Preservation of Cultural Property: Scientific Examination of Landscape with a Goat by Gerrit
Dou (GD-114),” unpublished report, 26 February 2013, on file, The Leiden Collection, NewYork.
3. Maarten Jager, Voorkeuren: Een particuliere collectie (Utrecht, 1985), 28–29.
4. In his analysis of the pigments found in GD-114, conservation scientist John Twilley foundthat no green pigments were used in painting this plant, which is currently blue inappearance. Twilley found a very high-quality ultramarine pigment in the uppermost layer ofthe paint, and concluded that Dou must have applied a yellow-pigmented glaze in the final
layers in order to create the appearance of green leaves. See John Twilley, “Analysis andMaterials Science for the Preservation of Cultural Property: Scientific Examination ofLandscape with a Goat by Gerrit Dou (GD-114),” unpublished report, February 26, 2013, on
file, The Leiden Collection, New York.
5. On the symbolism of Arctium lappa, see Guido Jansen, “Bok in een landscap,” in C.
Boschma et al., Meesterilijk vee Nederlandse veeschilders, 1600–1900 (Exh. cat. Dordrecht,
Dordrechts Museum; Leeuwarden, Fries Museum) (Zwolle, 1988), 189–91, no. 37. On theidentification of the pigments used for the plant and the possible loss of yellow glazing© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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resulting in the bluish coloring, see John Twilley, “Analysis and Materials Science for the
Preservation of Cultural Property: Scientific Examination of Landscape with a Goat by Gerrit
Dou (GD-114),” unpublished report, 26 February 2013, on file, The Leiden Collection, NewYork.
6. “Met de Geyt, de Satyren oock daer onder begrepen, wort d’onkuysheyt; beteyckent. De
Geyte beteyckent de Hoere, die de jonghe knechten verderft, ghelijck; de Geyt de jonghe
groen spruyten afknaeght en scheyndet.” Karel van Mander, Het Schilder-Boeck,
Uitlegghingh op den Metamorphosis Pub. Ovidy Nasionis… (Haarlem, 1604), fol. 129r. For an
English translation, see Karel van Mander,The Lives of the Illustrious Netherlandish andGerman Painters, from the First Edition of the Schilder-Boeck (1603–1604), ed. Hessel
Miedema (Doornspijk, 1994–99). See also Alison McNeil Kettering, The Dutch Arcadia:
Pastoral Art and Its Audience in the Golden Age (Montclair, 1983), 57.
7. See Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.’s essay on Hendrick Goltzius’s Fall of Man, in Dutch Paintings of
the Seventeenth Century, National Gallery of Art Online Editions, Washington D.C.
8. Alison McNeil Kettering, The Dutch Arcadia: Pastoral Art and Its Audience in the Golden Age(Montclair, 1983), esp. 44–58.
9. Peter C. Sutton, ed., Masters of 17th-Century Dutch Landscape Painting (Exh. cat.
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum; Boston, Museum of Fine Arts; Philadelphia Museum of Art)
(Boston, 1987), 372–73, no. 55; Guido Jansen, “Bok in een landscap,” in C. Boschma etal., Meesterlijk vee: Nederlandse veeschilders, 1600–1900 (Exh. cat. Dordrecht, Dordrechts
Museum; Leeuwarden, Fries Museum) (Zwolle, 1988), 189–91, no. 37; Astrid Tümpel, Peter
Schatborn, and Christian Tümpel, et al., Pieter Lastman: The Man Who Taught Rembrandt(Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis) (Zwolle, 1991), 89; Eric Jan Sluijter,“The Introduction of the Amorous Shepherd’s Idyll in Dutch Prints and Paintings,”
in Seductress of Sight: Studies in Dutch Art of the Golden Age (Zwolle, 2000), 161–97.
10. Dendrochronological analysis was carried out on the present panel in 2010 by Ian Tyers, whoconcluded that the oak panel, originating from western Germany and the Low Countries,
derived from a tree that was felled in 1594; see Ian Tyers’s unpublished report on GD-114,
on file, The Leiden Collection, New York.
11. Ronni Baer, “The Paintings of Gerrit Dou (1613–1675),” 3 vols. (PhD diss. New York
University, 1990), nos. 103–06; Ronni Baer, “Dou’s Nudes,” in Aemulatio: Imitation,
Emulation, and Invention in Netherlandish Art from 1500 to 1800, Essays in Honor of Eric Jan
Sluijter, ed. Anton W. A. Boschloo, Jacquelyn N. Coutré, Stephanie S. Dickey, and Nicolette
C. Luijter-Seijffert (Zwolle, 2011), 371–81.
12. For the 1665 document, see Theodoor Hermann Lunsingh Sheurleer, Cornelia Willemijn
Fock, and A.J. van Dissel, eds., Het Rapenburg: Geschiedenis van een Leidse gracht, 6 vols.
and index (Leiden 1986–92), 3b:486, no. 7. Hofstede de Groot was the first to associate
GD-114 with the painting described in the 1665 document as “1 bok en landschap.” See© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Goat in a Landscape
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Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch
Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith, ed. and trans.
Edward G. Hawke, 8 vols. (London, 1907–28), originally published as Beschreibendes und
kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten höllandischen Maler des XVII.
Jahrhunderts, 10 vols. (Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28), 1: 462, no. 385.
13. On the original cases, see Ivan Gaskell, “Gerrit Dou, His Patrons and the Art of
Painting,” Oxford Art Journal 5, no. 1 (1982): 19–21; Ronni Baer, “The Wine Cellar,” 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), 110, no. 23; Annegret Laabs, “Still Life with a Candlestick and a
Watch,” in The Leiden Fijnschilders from Dresden, ed. Christiaan Vogelaar (exh. cat. Leiden,
Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal; Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche
Kunstsammlungen) (Zwolle, 2001), 30–32; Ronni Baer, “Dou’s Nudes,” in Aemulatio:
Imitation, Emulation, and Invention in Netherlandish Art from 1500 to 1800, Essays in Honorof Eric Jan Sluijter, ed. Anton W. A. Boschloo, Jacquelyn N. Coutré, Stephanie S. Dickey, andNicolette C. Luijter-Seijffert (Zwolle, 2011), 371.
14. See Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “The Framing of a Vermeer,” in Collected Opinions: Essays on
Netherlandish Art in Honour of Alfred Bader, ed. Volker Manuth and Axel Rüger (London,
2004), 232–39.
15. The underlying inscription announces the destructive force of human sexuality: “Omnia
pervertit veneris vaesana libido iura, fidem, patriam” (The raging fury of love’s desire
overturns everything: law, faith, country). The author would like to thank Dr. David Ratzan for
his translation. On the meaning of the bird, another well-established erotic symbol referencing
sexuality, shown in Libido’s proper right hand, 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, trans. and ed. Michael
Hoyle (Leiden, 2000), 22–58, esp. 25ff, fig. 3 (first published as “Erotica in vogelsperspectif:
De dubbelzinnigheid van een reeks zeventiende-eeuwse genrevoorstellingen,” Simiolus 3[1968–69]).

Provenance
Johan de Bye, Leiden, by 1665.
(Sale, 2 April 1803, no. 14 [for 504 frs.]).
De Preuil (sale, Paris, Lebrun, 26 November 1811, no. 65 [to Este for 220 frs.]; sale, Paris,
Lebrun, 2 February 1813, no. 176 [unsold at 150 f.]).
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Edward Loyd, by 1857; by descent to M. Lewis Loyd, Monks Orchard, Beckenham, Kent; bydescent to Captain E. N. F. Loyd, Shaw Hill, Melksham, Wiltshire (his sale, London,
Christie’s, 30 April 1937, no. 101 [to Heather for £168]).
Dr. Hans Wetzlar, Amsterdam, by 1950 (sale, Sotheby’s, London, 9 July 2008, no. 46[Johnny van Haeften, Ltd., 2008]).
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2008.

Exhibition History
Leiden, front room in the house of Johannes Hannot on the Breestraat, September 1665 [lentby Johan de Bye].
Manchester, “The Art Treasures of Great Britain,” 5 May–17 October 1857, no. 1039 [lent by
Edward Loyd].
London, Matthiesen Gallery, “Rembrandt’s Influence in the 17th Century,” 20 February–2
April 1953, no. 17 [lent by Dr. Hans Wetzlar].
Paris, Institut Néerlandais, “Bestiaire hollandais,” 1–27 March 1960, no. 64 [lent by Dr. Hans
Wetzlar].
Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum, “Meesterlijk vee: Nederlandse veeschilders, 1600–1900,” 25
September–20 November 1988; Leeuwarden, Fries Museum, 3 December 1988–29 January
1989, no. 37 [lent by Dr. Hans Wetzlar].
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,” 9March–31 August 2014 [lent by the present owner].
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The
Leiden Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].
Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden
Age: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection,” 23 September 2017–25 February 2018 [lentby the present owner].
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:
Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection,” 28 March 2018–22 July 2018 [lent by the present
owner].
St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:
Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection,” 5 September 2018–13 January 2019 [lent by thepresent owner].
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age.
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre,” 14 February–18 May
2019 [lent by the present owner].

References
Bürger, Willliam [Etienne-Joseph-Théophile Thoré]. Trésors d’art exposés à Manchester en1857 et provenant des collections royales, des collections publiques et des collections
particulières de la Grande-Bretagne. Paris, 1857, 258.
City Art Gallery. Catalogue of the Art Treasures of the United Kingdom Collected at
Manchester in 1857. Exh. cat. Manchester, City Art Gallery. London, 1857, 71, no. 1039.
Bürger,Willliam[Etienne-Joseph-Théophile

Thoré].

Trésors

d’art

en Angleterre. Brussels, 1860, 258.
Martin, Wilhelm. Het leven en de werken van Gerrit Dou. Leiden, 1901, no. 359.
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 translatedby Edward G. Hawke, 1: 462, no. 385. 8 vols. London, 1907–28. 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, sa vie et son oeuvre. Etude sur la peinture hollandaise et lesmarchaunds au dix-septième siècle. Paris, 1911, 209, no. 288.
Martin, Wilhelm. Gerard Dou, des Meisters Gemälde. Klassiker der Kunst 24. Stuttgart andBerlin, 1913, xviii–xix.
Friedla?nder, Max J., and H. Wetzlar. Collection Dr. H. Wetzlar. Amsterdam, 1952, 11, no.
26.
Gerson, Horst. Rembrandt’s Influence in the Seventeenth Century: Catalogue of a Loan
Exhibition. Exh. cat. London, Matthiesen Gallery. London, 1953, 13, no. 17.
Institut Néerlandais. Bestiaire hollandais: exposition de tableaux, aquarelles, dessins et
gravures par des artistes hollandais des XVII–XVIII siècles et d’un choix de livres de lamême periode. Exh. cat. Paris, Institut Néerlandais. Paris, 1960, 17, no. 64.
Sumowski, Werner. Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler. 6 vols. Landau and Pfalz, 1983–94,
1:538, 603, no. 306.
Jager, Maarten. Voorkeuren: een particuliere collectie. Utrecht, 1985, 28–29.
Lunsingh Scheurleer et al., Het Rapenburg: Geschiedenis van een Leidse gracht, 6 vols. andindex. Leiden, 1986–92, 3b:486.
Jansen, Guido. “Bok in een landscap.” In Meesterlijk vee: Nederlandse veeschilders,© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Goat in a Landscape
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1600–1900.

Edited by C. Boschma, 189–91, no. 37.

Exh. cat. Dordrecht, Dordrechts

Museum; Leeuwarden, Fries Museum. Zwolle, 1988.
Baer, Ronni. “The Paintings of Gerrit Dou (1613–1675).” 3 vols. PhD dissertation, New York
University, 1990, 2: no. 106.
Baer, Ronni. “Dou’s Nudes.” In Aemulatio: Imitation, Emulation, and Invention in
Netherlandish Art from 1500 to 1800, Essays in Honor of Eric Jan Sluijter. Edited by Anton W.
A. Boschloo, Jacquelyn N. Coutré, Stephanie S. Dickey, and Nicolette C. Sluijter-Seijffert.
Zwolle, 2011, 377, 381, n. 19.
Surh, Dominique, Ilona van Tuinen, and John Twilley. “Insights from Technical Analysis on aGroup of Paintings by Gerrit Dou in the Leiden Collection.” JHNA 6:1 (Winter 2014): 1-6, 11,16-18,

22,

figs.

10

a-b,

40,

41

a-c,

42

a-b,

44,

45

a-b,

55,

59

a-b.

DOI:10.5092/jhna.2014.6.1.3.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Goat in a Landscape”. In Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces
from The Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara, Yeager-Crasselt, 90; 167, no. 31. Translated by
Wang YouYou. Beijing, 2017.
Long Museum, West Bund. Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund.
Shanghai, 2017, 100.
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, 16; 28, no. 2. Translated by Daria Babich and Daria Kuzina. Exh. cat. Moscow,
The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts; St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum.
Moscow, 2018.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Goat in a Landscape.” In The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:
Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 90–91; 234, no. 12.
Translated by Daria Babich and Daria Kuzina. Exh. cat. Moscow, The Pushkin State Museumof Fine Arts; St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Moscow, 2018.
Ducos, Blaise, and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, eds. Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden
Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Exh. cat. Abu
Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019, 128–9, no. 56. [Exhibition catalogue also publishedin French and Arabic.]

Technical Summary
The painting is executed on of a single plank of tangentially cut, vertically grained oak from a tree
felled after 1594. The panel remains in plane, retains its original thickness and there are original© 2020 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Goat in a Landscape
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bevels along all four edges. 0.5-cm-wide by 0.7-cm-thick wooden shims have been secured to all
four panel edges. The shims’ wood grains are oriented lengthwise—they run cross-grain along theupper and lower panel edges—have mitered corners and each has been secured to the panel withthree metal brads.[1]Under magnification, a white ground is visible along the upper and left edges, however the added
wooden shims make it impossible to determine whether the ground spills over onto any of thepanel edges. In the X-radiograph, the ground is radio-opaque, has been thinly and evenly applied,
and accentuates the panel’s vertical wood grain. Four parallel, upward sloping diagonal lines canbe seen in the ground, the most prominent of which is visible through the thin glazes of paintacross the goat’s proper left leg and tail.
The paint, which also extends to the panel edges, has been built up in successive thin layers, lightover dark.[2] In raking light, the branches of the tree stand slightly raised, as does the large leaf tothe left of the goat and the outlines of the goat’s two horns and legs.
The painting is signed in brown paint on a rock at lower center: “GDOU” (GD in ligature)
No underdrawing is evident with infrared photography at 780, 850, or 1000 nanometers, however
pentimenti, x-radiography, and infrared reflectography all suggest that the head of the goat was
originally depicted in profile, facing to the left, and the point of the proper right horn was originallyoriented parallel to the proper left horn. In addition, there has been a compositional change
through the dark fur between the goat’s proper left leg and tail.
The painting has been brush varnished with damar.[3] The varnish has a reticulated surface andthere are numerous matte areas where the varnish has sunk. The most noticeable three areas ofsinking are to the left and right of the goat and through the proper right side of the goat’s face. In
addition, vertical hairline cracks run through the varnish parallel to the wood grain. These hairline
cracks appear as pale gray vertical lines through the blue sky along the upper half of thecomposition that continue down through the goat.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. See X-radiograph.
2. The upper layers, particularly through the blue sky along the upper left quadrant, blue
landscape, and dark fur of the goat, have been damaged during a past cleaning.
3. According to Nancy Krieg’s 2009 private conservation treatment notes and discussions with
her assistant Kirsten Younger.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection