RKD STUDIES

81 GERARD DOV.

... by Terburg [110], will always remain a Terburg; the Bush by Ruijsdael, a Ruijsdael [111].¹ Lord Hertford's Hobbema's will remain Hobbema's [112],² therefore, in addition to their artistic merits, they are worth 100,000 francs.

The Amsterdam museum has four paintings by Gerard Dov (1), two of the most important kind and two more common.

First: "No. 65. The famous and well-known Evening School"; so it says in the catalog [113].³ The schoolmaster, wearing a red hat and turned three-quarters to the right, sits in front of his desk, on which are a lit candle and an hourglass. He threatens with his finger to a little boy walking toward the back, where several schoolchildren sit around a table barely lit by a candle, near a spiral staircase along which an almost invisible figure descends. A large brownish drapery, suspended in front above, hides half the background, an artifice no doubt used to better concentrate the effects of light and shadow under this kind of theatrical drapery. In front of the master is a small ...

------

(1) The new cat. continues to give 1613 as Gerard Dov's date of birth, despite the inscription on The Dropsical Woman in the Louvre, where Mr. Villot believes he reads that "G. Dov was 65 years old in 1663," which led the editor of the Paris catalog to enter 1598 as the date of birth instead of 1613. The Dutch did not want this 1598 date, and they were right (see Trésors d'art, etc., by W. Burger, p. 258 and 259).⁴

82 MUSEUM OF AMSTERDAM.

... girl, depicted in profile and leaning against the table; she is spelling out letters by tracing them over with her index finger. To the left, another group: a boy, seated and seen from behind, writes sums on a slate, by the light of a candle held in front of him by a girl standing upright and showing the numbers with her left hand. Finally, a fourth candle burns in a lantern placed on the floor, at the foot of the table, in the center of the room.

All this arranged on a small panel 1 foot 8 inches high and 1 foot 3 inches wide. Lithographed by Van Loo [114].

The pure signature, a large G to which a small DOV is attached, can be seen in the lower center, at the base of the table.

This important painting brought 4,000 guilders at the auction of Mrs. C. Backer, Leyden, in 1766, and 17,500 guilders at the auction of Van der Pot, Rotterdam, 1808. What is most admired is the combat between the candles; or it is really, if you will, a very skillful piece of virtuoso painting.

Personally, I am not very fond of this kind of juggling with paint (1), even though some of the great masters ...

------

(1) "... We proudly display here a Gérard Dow (sic) who has a European reputation: The Evening School; it is childlike because of its minute details, it is painted with the eyelashes of a newborn child, and I must confess that I did not feel brave enough to rant about four different candle effects." – M. Ducamp, Revue de Paris, Oct. 57.⁵

83 GERARD DOV.

... set the example: Correggio, in his famous Night (the Adoration of the Shepherds), at the Dresden Museum [115]; Rembrandt, in an Adoration of the Shepherds (at the National Gallery in London) [116],⁶ where, as in Correggio's painting, the center of the scene is illuminated by the radiant bambino, a dazzling supernatural light that turns yellow the torches and lanterns carried by the shepherds. The whimsy of these magicians is sublime. But when Honthorst (Gerardo⁴⁹⁹ della notte) set out to imitate Correggio, he became a counterfeiter and made nothing but a kind of ghost show. Gerard Dov, also seeking to specialize in what for his teacher was an accidental fantasy, undoubtedly shows incomparable diligence, which is the right word, but true art has nothing to do with these futile preoccupations. Art is more spontaneous in its impression, more frank in its results. I prefer a simply painted head illuminated by a sunbeam to the most ingenious combinations of this kind of fake lighting. And the unfortunate thing is that Gerard Dov's beautiful lantern effects almost always look like lanterns, as we say in the studios: the light illuminating his figures would pass through them if we looked at them from the other side.

This very style of Gerard Dov was imitated by Schalcken, and today Mr. Van Schendel tries to imitate it.

Smith (no. 79) praises the Evening School highly; but after saying that "nothing in art can surpass ...

84 MUSEUM OF AMSTERDAM.

... the magical effect of light and shade in this painting", he adds: "The master appears to have chosen difficulties in order to show how well his superior talents could overcome them. Some connoisseurs consider this as the most capital of his works, since the loss of the famous Braamcamp painting, called La Chambre de l'Accouchée (1) [117], but the writer is not of this opinion, as several of the artist’s paintings possess much higher finishing, and are more agreeable both in composition and effect. It is to be regretted that this capital painting has become a little darker from age – a circumstance very much against it".⁷

Gerard Dov⁸ in my opinion is preferable in painting no. 68, where he painted "a gentleman and lady (2)" in a landscape of Berchem [118].⁹

The man stands frontally, his right hand resting on a walking stick. He wears a large black hat, a large, turned-down collar, trimmed with scalloped lace; ...

------

(1) The Maternity Room (Smith 38), mentioned by Descamps as being present in 1754 in the house of the widow Van Hoeck, brought 6,000 guilders at the auction of a member of that family, Amsterdam, 1719; afterwards it went to the famous Braamcamp collection, and at Braamcamp's auction in 1771 it was bought for 14,100 guilders for the Tsar of Russia; but the ship carrying it along with many other objects of great value suffered shipwreck and the painting was lost; it had two shutters, painted on the inside by Gerard Dov.¹⁰
(2) The new cat. states that these portraits are of Pieter van der Werf, mayor of Leiden, and his wife.

85 GERARD DOV.

... black doublet and black pants; a short black-brown cloak over his left shoulder, concealing his entire arm resting on his hip; soft chamois leather riding boots with spurs. He occupies the center of the panel.

To the right sits his wife, facing him three-quarters of the way. She wears a starched cap, forming a crown around her head, a collar of rich guipure lace, a camellia-colored bodice with red and silver accents, with gold embroidery and laces, brown sleeves, large cuffs fringed with guipure lace like the collar, and a dark orange silk skirt with greenish accents. Her right hand, shod and resting on her lap, holds a feather fan. Her left arm hangs straight down along her side; the glove of this hand fell to the ground.

These figures are nearly a foot tall. The heads are wonderful, especially that of the man, who is lively and proud. Despite the extreme delicacy of the touch, it is neither dry, nor thin, nor small. On the contrary, it is broad and strong. You could look at these portraits through the wrong end of binoculars: they would appear life-size, real, honest, solid, like portraits by Van der Helst.

The same experiment would not usually work with Gerard Dov's characters. You could magnify them with optical lenses, but then they would often seem ingenious puppets, delicately modeled in cardboard on a fragile frame of metal wire. But try this with Rembrandt's little ...