Man Smoking a Pipe

In 18th-century Dutch collections this panel probably went by a plain name, the tobacco smoker. A Delft collection of 1734 had a smoker by Dou in its front room, and a collection in The Hague in 1752 listed one described as a portrait of Gerrit Dou painted by himself. The Rijksmuseum still records that identification. A young man with long fair hair and a dark cap leans on a stone window ledge, pipe raised, looking straight out at us. An open book lies so close to the edge of the sill that it seems to stick out into our space, and a sheet of paper hangs over the ledge below it. Dou signed on that sheet, GDov. A painted green curtain on a copper rod completes the illusion, though at under half a metre tall, the panel gives the trick away.