Self-Portrait at Age Fifty
Framed: 30 1/4 x 24 3/4 inches (76.84 x 62.87 cm)
- 117
Masterpieces of Five Centuries, Golden Gate International Exposition, San Francisco, February 18–December 2, 1939, no. 74.
Self-portraits, Baroque to Impressionism, Schaeffer Galleries, New York, April 1–May 1, 1940, no. 4.
Great Dutch Paintings from America, Mauritshuis, The Hague, September 28, 1990–January 23, 1991; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, February 16, 1991–May 5, 1991, no. 18.
Gerrit Dou: Master Painter in the Age of Rembrandt, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., April 16 - August 6, 2000; Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, September 6–November 19, 2000; Mauritshuis, The Hague, December 9, 2000–February 24, 2001, no. 27.
Weaving Splendor: Treasures of Asian Textiles from The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, September 25-March 6, 2022.
In this self-portrait, Dutch painter Gerrit Dou flexes his ability to capture fine fabrics, demonstrating his talent for communicating the status of wealthy sitters who could own such luxurious items. Draped in silks and fur-lined velvet, he leans against a table covered by a Turkish carpet. Dou was likely not wealthy enough to own this Turkish carpet, which came to Holland through the Dutch East India Trading Company. Like many other Dutch artists in the 1600s, Dou probably rented the carpet as a studio prop, as the same Turkish carpet appears in Dou’s paintings of other sitters.
Possibly Maximilien II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria (1662-1726), Schloss Schleissheim, near Munich, by 1726 [1];
Possibly by descent to his son, Charles VII Albert, Elector of Bavaria, King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor (1697-1745), Schloss Schleissheim, near Munich, 1726-1745;
Possibly by descent to his son, Maximilian III Joseph, Elector of Bavaria (1727-1777), Schloss Schleissheim, near Munich, 1745-1777;
Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich, 1777-January 1931;
Purchased from the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich, by D. A. Hoogendijk and Co., Amsterdam, stock no. O.S. 892, January 1931-May 28, 1932 [2];
Purchased from Hoogendijk by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1932.
NOTES:
[1] According to Ronni Baer, Gerrit Dou: Master Painter in the Age of Rembrandt (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 118, the painting may have been acquired with other Netherlandish paintings by Maximilien II Emanuel. The first definitive record of the family’s ownership is the inclusion of the painting in a 1770 Schleissheim inventory.
[2] Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague, Hoogendijk Archives.
Verzeichnis der Gemälde der königlichen Bildergalerie in München (Munich: Joseph A. Finsterlin, 1825), 120.
John Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters, vol. 1 (London: Smith, 1829), no. 109, p. 37.
Georg Kaspar Nagler, Neues allgemeines Künstler-Lexicon oder Nachrichten von dem Leben und Werken der Maler, Bildhauer, Baumeister, Kupferstecher, Formschneider, Lithographen, Zeichner, Medailleure, Elfenbeinarbeiter, etc., vol. 3 (Munich: E. A. Fleischmann, 1836), 469.
John Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters, vol. 4 (London: Smith, 1842), no. 65, p. 20.
Johann Georg von Dillis, Catalogue des tableaux de la Pinacothèque royale à Munich (Munich: J.A. Finsterlin, 1845), 225.
Christiaan Kramm, De levens en werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche kunstschilders, beeldhouwers, graveurs en bouwmeesters, van den vroegsten tot op onzen tijd, vol. 1 (Amsterdam: Gebroeders Diederichs 1857), 360.
Katalog der Gemälde Sammlung der Königlichen Älteren Pinakothek in München, 2nd ed. (Munich: Knorr and Hirth, 1886), no. 397, p. 85.
G. Hirth and R. Muther, Der Cicerone in der Königlichen Älteren Pinakothek zu Munich (Munich and Leipzig: G. Hirth’s Kunstverlag, 1888), 164, (repro.).
Willem Martin, Het leven en de werken van Gerrit Dou (Leiden: S.C. van Doesburgh, 1901), no. 100, p. 198.
George C. Williamson, ed., Bryan’s Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, 2nd ed., vol. 2 (1816; New York: Macmillan, 1903), 85.
Alfred von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, auf Grund archivalischer Forschungen bis auf die neueste Zeit bearbeitet, vol. 1 (Leipzig: Kunsthistorischer Verlag, 1904), 418.
Ernst Wilhelm Moes, Iconographia Batava: Beredeneerde Lijst Van Geschilderde En Gebeeldhouwde Portretten Van Noord-Nederlanders in Vorige Eeuwen, vol. 1 (Amsterdam: Frederick Muller, 1905), 241.
Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century, Based on the Works of John Smith, ed. and trans. Edward G. Hawke, vol. 1 (London: Macmillan, 1908), no. 274, p. 436.
Willem Martin, Gérard Dou, sa vie et son oeuvre. Étude sur la peinture hollandaise et les marchands au dix-septième siècle, 2nd ed. (1901; Paris, Jouve and Cie., 1911), no. 48, p. 171.
Willem Martin, Gerard Dou: Des Meisters Gemälde (Stuttgart and Berlin: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1913), 20, 180, (repro.).
“The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City Special Number,” Art News 32, no. 10 (December 9, 1933): 30, 40, (repro.).
The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Handbook of the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1933), 31, 136, (repro.).
Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 259.
Neil Maclaren, National Gallery Catalogue: The Dutch School (London, 1960), 104n6.
Eduard Plietzsch, Holländische und Flämische Maler des XVII Jahrhunderts (Leipzig: VEB E. A. Seemann, 1960), 37.
H. Van Hall, Portretten van Nederlandse beeldende Kunstenaars (Amsterdam: Swets en Zeitlinger, 1963), 81.
G. Eckhardt, Selbstbildnisse Niederländischer Maler des 17. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1971), 39, 177, (repro.).
Michael Jaffé, “The Flemish and Dutch Schools,” Apollo 96, no. 130 (December 1972): 509, (repro.) [repr. in Denys Sutton, ed., William Rockhill Nelson Gallery, Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City (London: Apollo Magazine, 1972), 41, (repro.)].
Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 117, (repro).
Ivan Gaskell, “Gerrit Dou, His Patrons and the Art of Painting,” The Oxford Art Journal 5, no. 1 (1982): 21, 22, (repro.).
Richard Whittier Hunnewell, Gerrit Dou’s Self Portraits and Depictions of the Artist (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI, 1983), 85, 120–130, 149n77, 149n81, 280n7.
Werner Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt–Schüler, vol. 1 (Landau/Pfalz: Edition PVA, 1983), 501, 537, 601, (repro.).
Hans-Joachim Raupp, Untersuchungen zu Künstlerbildnis und Künstlerdarstellung in den Niederlanden im 17. Jahrundert (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1984), 265.
Peter C. Sutton, A Guide to Dutch Art in America (Washington D.C.: The Netherlands – American Amity Trust, 1986), 178.
Ben Broos, ed., Great Dutch Paintings from America, exh. cat (The Hague: Mauritshuis, 1990), 218–223, (repro.).
Ronni Baer, “The Paintings of Gerrit Dou (1613–1675)” (PhD diss., New York University, 1990), no. 88.
Eric Jan Sluijter, De Lof der Schilderkunst. Over schilderijen van Gerrit Dou (1613–1675) en een traktaat van Philips Angel uit 1642 (Hilversum: Verloren, 1993), 50.
Friso Lammertse, “Veranderen na verloop van Jaren. Over Gerard Dou’s Kwakzalver in Rotterdam en het Zelfportrat in Kansas City,” in Album Discipulorum J. R. J. van Asperen de Boer, ed. Peter van den Brink and Liesbeth M. Helmus (Zwolle: Waanders, 1997), 116–119, (repro.).
Ronni Baer, Gerrit Dou, 1613–1675: Master Painter in the Age of Rembrandt, exh. cat. (Washington D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2000), 118, 119, 142, (repro.).
Paul Johnson, Art: A New History (New York: Harper Collins, 2003), 374.
Walter Liedtke, Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 1 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2007), 160, 162, 163, (repro.).
