読書する老女の肖像

Around 1631 Gerrit Dou was barely 18 and fresh out of the Leiden workshop of Rembrandt, who was then himself only about 25. The old woman he paints here modelled for both of them, and for their friend Jan Lievens too. For a long time people wanted her to be Rembrandt's own mother, though there is no proof of it. What Dou took from Rembrandt is the light. It falls from one side and picks out just what matters, the lined face and the heavy book. He renders that book so exactly that you can read the page. It is the opening of chapter 19 of the Gospel of Luke, on giving half of what you own to the poor.