Gerrit Dou

Gerrit Dou was the first pupil Rembrandt ever took, joining the young master's Leiden studio around 1628 when both were near the start of their careers. But Dou went the opposite way from his teacher. Where Rembrandt grew broad and rough, Dou grew ever smaller and smoother.

He founded the Leiden school of fijnschilders, the fine painters, whose pictures are jewel-like, minutely detailed, and often no bigger than a book. He liked to frame a scene in a stone window niche, a woman leaning out, a candlelit shop, every hair and brass nail rendered as if under a magnifying glass. He was said to grind his colours to dust and wait for the air to settle before touching the panel.

In his own day this patience made him one of the highest-paid artists in Europe, dearer than Rembrandt himself, with collectors paying a yearly retainer for first choice of whatever he finished.