A Boy Picking Fleas off a Dog

In 1840 the Amsterdam banker and collector Adriaan van der Hoop bought a small panel of a boy picking fleas off his dog, in the belief that it was by Gerard ter Borch. It was not. The art historian Carl von Lützow recognised it as a copy in 1870, and modern study at the Rijksmuseum, which holds it on loan from the city of Amsterdam, found that it had been made to deceive, with a pattern of cracks painted on to fake old age. Tree-ring dating of its oak points to a date in or after about 1728. The original it imitated is this picture, painted by ter Borch around 1655. The boy, dressed for school, combs through the dog's coat with complete absorption, while his exercise books lie ignored beside him. The museum reads that patience two ways, as an image of domestic cleanliness and care, and at the same time as a warning against idleness. Next to the original, the forger's boy is stockier, and the foreshortening is less pronounced.