Self-Portrait

In 1648 the painters of Leiden at last formed a guild of their own, the Guild of Saint Luke, and Gerrit Dou was among its founders. By then his small, minutely finished panels already sold for some of the highest prices of the day. About 17 years later, at around 52, he painted himself as a man of standing. He leans in an arched stone window, in a fur-trimmed gown and a dark cap, a palette and brushes in one hand, the other resting on a large open book. A heavy tapestry is drawn back over the opening like a curtain. On the ledge lies a plaster cast of a face, the kind of model painters learned to draw from, and in the shadows behind him stand an easel, a globe and a small statue. Writers on Dou see his self-portraits as statements of the painter's place in society, a craftsman presenting himself as a man of learning, and they also read objects like these as quiet reminders of how brief life is. The panel is nearly 60 centimetres tall, large for a painter whose pictures were often no bigger than a page. It stayed in private hands until 2019, when it was given to the Museum of Fine Arts.