Portrait of a Woman in Profileca. 1635–40

Gerrit Dou(Leiden 1613 – 1675 Leiden)

oil on panel
13.3 x 11.3 cm
signed in dark paint along left midpoint of oval:“GDou”
GD-110Currently on view at: The National Museum ofChina, Beijing© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Woman in Profile
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How To Cite
Surh, Dominique. "Portrait of a Woman in Profile." 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

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

Comparative Figures

brown hair curling over her forehead is one in a series of small, bust-length
studies that Gerrit Dou painted in an oval format between 1635 and1640.[1] Comparable paintings by the artist include his Portrait Bust of aYouth from ca. 1635 in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge(fig 1), andPortrait of a Young Woman from ca. 1635–40 in the Manchester City ArtGalleries.[2] All three works are similar in scale and format, and situate adelicately rendered sitter against a loosely brushed background. This
unknown female sitter is portrayed in a fur-trimmed jacket of the type wornby ladies in the middle class, and is shown without a formal ruff or othercollar. She wears a simple embroidered silk undercap, called blackwork,with a scrolling foliage pattern typical of the 1630s, but not the intricate
lace coif of the type that would have normally been worn over it.[3] This
manner of dress indicates a degree of informality and suggests that she
may have been a relative or close personal acquaintance of theFig 1. Gerrit Dou, Portrait Bust ofa Youth, ca. 1635, oil on panel,
15.1 x 12.2 cm, FitzwilliamMuseum, Cambridge, nr. 35, ©
2000–2012, The FitzwilliamMuseum, University ofCambridge, UK.

artist.[4] Given her orientation facing left, it is possible that Dou originallypaired her with a now-lost male pendant.
The woman’s unusual “earring” further situates her fashion to the 1630s.
This type of ornament is not attached to her ear, but is part of her
headdress. It actually hangs from the tips of her ear-iron (oorijzer), whichholds her undercap in place. Marieke de Winkel has found mention ofsimilar such ornaments, consisting of crescent moons and a small pendant
pearl or crystal, in inventories of women who were deceased in the 1640s

Fig 2. Detail of face, Portrait of a
Woman in Profile, GD-110but married in the 1630s, when they likely purchased these fashionable
items.[5]In Dou’s portrait, a bright light illuminates the sitter’s glowing complexion,
rosy lips and high-collared white shirt. The artist’s close observation oflight is evident in the way the shirt casts a bluish-white reflection on theunderside of the woman’s chin. Dou’s painterly virtuosity is particularly
apparent in the smooth and delicate rendering of the sitter’s facial

Fig 3. Detail of collar, Portrait of aWoman in Profile, GD-110

features, where his individualized brushstrokes are virtually imperceptible.
Dou had an extraordinary capacity to balance areas of minute detail withmore broadly painted passages. Here, for example, he allowed the ocher
ground to provide a base color for the sitter’s hair by painting the hairfollicles with overlapping strokes of transparent paint. The range of hisbrushwork is evident in the freely rendered curly wisps of hair that fallalong her temples, where some single follicles are also incised in the same
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Woman in Profile
Page 4 of 8color of her flesh tone (fig 2). These wavy strokes contrast with thecarefully brushed parallel hatchings that model both her temple and hereyebrow in virtually indistinguishable tones of color. Dou painted the semitranslucent bonnet with loosely brushed strokes that vary in rhythm andthickness, carefully allowing the faintly perceptible shape of the lady’s ear
to read through the embroidered undercap’s delicate form. Finally, painting
wet-into-wet, Dou softened the edges of the fur cloak by dragging hisbrush back and forth over the whites of the woman’s shirt (fig 3).
Despite Dou’s careful manner of painting to model his forms and create aFig 4. Verso of Portrait of a
Woman in Profile, GD-110

range of textures, he often adjusted his compositions during the pictorial
process. In this instance, he shifted the sitter’s profile slightly to the right, achange that is apparent with the naked eye and also through infrared
reflectography. This change is particularly evident along the sitter’sforehead, suggesting that she may initially have directed her gaze slightly
lower than in the final orientation.
An intriguing feature of this small portrait is the construction of its panel
support, where the painted oval panel is set into a larger rectangular one.
The reasons for this construction are unclear, but other examples of such

Fig 5. Interior of Marcus Kappel
Gallery, Berlin, ca. 1921, whereGD-110 is seen at the far right,
lower row (photo: Sotheby’s, NewYork, 4 June 2009, 38).

inserted panels are known by Dou and other Leiden painters.[6] In the caseof the present Portrait of a Woman in Profile , the dendrochronology of theouter rectangular panel dates from the 1660s–70s, which suggests that it
was later adapted to a larger format.[7]Three unidentified red wax seals on the reverse reference the painting’s
unknown eighteenth- and nineteenth-century owners (fig 4). The
provenance is documented only as far back as 1914, when the work
formed part of the renowned Marcus Kappel collection in Berlin (fig 5).
Acquired by descent during the third decade of the twentieth century, thepocket-sized Dou painting made its way to England with Henry T.
Rathenau, who escaped Berlin during World War II. The little Dou waskept in a bank vault in England up until 1997, when Rathenau’s last heir,
his sister Ellen Ettlinger, passed away.[8]-Dominique Surh© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Woman in Profile
Page 5 of 8Endnotes
1. According to Ronni Baer, the handling of the paint and the delicately drawn features point toa date closer to 1640. See Ronni Baer, “Portrait of a Woman,” inGerrit Dou 1613–1675:
Master Painter in the Age of Rembrandt , ed. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. (Exh. cat. Washington
D.C., National Gallery of Art; London, Dulwich Picture Gallery; The Hague, Mauritshuis)(Washington D.C., 2000) 82–83, no. 10.
2. The Dou in the Manchester City Art Gallery is illustrated in Ronni Baer, Gerrit Dou
1613–1675: Master Painter in the Age of Rembrandt , ed. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. (Exh. cat.
Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art; London, Dulwich Picture Gallery; The Hague,Mauritshuis) (Washington D.C., 2000), 80–81, no. 9.
3. Marieke de Winkel, letter to the author, July 2013, curatorial files, the Leiden Collection.
4. Marieke de Winkel, letter to the author, July 2013, curatorial files, the Leiden Collection.
5. The author would like to thank Marieke de Winkel (letter to the author, July 2013, curatorial
files, the Leiden Collection) for identifying the “earrings” as part of the ear-iron and forproviding the following references to inventories from the 1630s and 1640s that describe
these jewels: Stadsarchief Amsterdam, Notarial Archive, notary J. Westfrisius, no. 563B,fols. 1–21, 1/5 jan. 1636, inventory of Abraham de Marez (II) and Rebecca Hooghcamer,
there at fol. 20r: “2 dito [peerlen] in halve maenties hangende f. 30:-:-”;

Stadsarchief

Amsterdam, Notarial Archive, notary A. Eggericx, no. 1811B, pp. 963-94, dd. 20 jul. 1642,
inventory of Jacques van Hoorn and Sofia van den Brande, there at p. 983: “2 halve maenen
met cristallen”; Stadsarchief Amsterdam, Notarial Archive, notary F. Bruyningh, no. 1414,fols. 41–48, dd. 23 nov. 1643, inventory of Mr. Paulus Jansz Iepelaar and Magdalena Jans,
there at fol. 48r: “Een silver ysertien met 2 halve maentiens op f. 5:-:-”. The author also
thanks Piet Bakker for providing the precise folio numbers.
6. See Quentin Buvelot and Otto Naumann, “Format Changes in Paintings by Frans van Mieris
the Elder,” Burlington Magazine (February 2008): 102–4. In 2012 Gero Seelig, curator ofNetherlandish paintings at the Staatliche Museum in Schwerin, presented his ongoing
research on this phenomenon at Codart Vijftien in Brussels and shared a list of inlaid panels
including works by an overwhelming number of Leiden painters such as Dou, Frans andWillem van Mieris, Godfried Schalcken, and Pieter van Slingeland, among others. For apartial list of these unsual constructions in Dou’s oeuvre, see Ronni Baer, “Of Cats andDogs: Domestic Pets in Rembrandt and Dou,” in Een Kroniek voor Jeroen Giltaij: Kroniek
van het Rembrandthuis (2012): 66–67 n. 16; Anja K. Ševčík and JiříTřeštík. “Doorstep
Transactions: Structural and Compositional Transformations on Gerard Dou’s Young Ladyon a Balcony,” Bulletin of the National Gallery in Prague 22–23 (2012–13): 23–43.
7. Ian Tyers, “Tree-Ring Analysis of Portrait of a Lady in Profile, GD-110 ,” unpublished© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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dendrochronological report, November 2010, curatorial files, the Leiden Collection. Since theoval panel is firmly set into the larger panel, dendrochronological examination of the earlier
oval panel is not possible through traditional means at this time.
8. On the painting’s twentieth-century provenance, see Dominique Surh, “Portrait of a Womanin Profile,” in Salomon Lilian Old Masters (Sales cat. Amsterdam) (Zwolle, 2003), 26–27, no.
8.

ProvenanceMarcus Kappel, Berlin, 1914; by descent to Henry T. Rathenau, Berlin; by descent to his
sister Ellen Ettlinger, Oxford, England, until 1997 [Noortman Gallery, Maastricht].
Private collection, the Netherlands [Salomon Lilian, Amsterdam, 2003].
From whom acquired by the present owner, July 2003.

Exhibition History
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, on loan with the permanent collection, before 1940 (inv. no.
1173, label on verso).
Washington, National Gallery of Art, “Gerrit Dou, 1613–1675: Master Painter in the Age ofRembrandt,” 16 April–6 August 2000; London, Dulwich Picture Gallery, 6 September–19
November 2000; The Hague, Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis, 9 December 2000–25
February 2001, no. 10 [lent by a private collector].
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 the present 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 fromTheLeiden Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].

References© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Portrait of a Woman in Profile
Page 7 of 8Baer, Ronni. “Portrait of a Woman.” In Gerrit Dou, 1613–1675: Master Painter in the Age ofRembrandt. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery ofArt; London, Dulwich Picture Gallery; The Hague, Mauritshuis, 2000–1. Zwolle, 2000,82–83, no. 10.
Surh, Dominique. “Portrait of a Woman in Profile.” In Salomon Lilian Old Masters. Sales cat.
Amsterdam, 2003, 26–27, no. 8.
Surh, Dominique, Van Tuinen, Ilona and Twilley, John. “Insights from Technical Analysis on
a Group of Paintings by Gerrit Dou in the Leiden Collection.” Journal of Historians ofNetherlandish Art 6, no. 1 (Winter 2014): 1, 3, 5, 20–22, figs. 4a–b, 57, 58, 61.

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

Technical Summary Endnotes

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

© 2017 The Leiden Collection