Portrait of a Man

7. April 1613

Born

1628

Teacher: Rembrandt

1628

His father places him with Rembrandt

In February 1628 his father, a stained-glass maker, sends the fourteen-year-old Gerrit to study painting with Rembrandt (then about twenty-one): Dou becomes the first pupil of the master, who kept a studio in Leiden together with Jan Lievens. He had earlier studied with his father, drawing with the engraver Bartholomeus Dolendo and in the stained-glass workshop of Pieter Couwenhorn; with Rembrandt he spends about three years and acquires his colouring and the subtle effects of chiaroscuro.

1648

Master of the Leiden Guild of St Luke

In 1648 he is admitted as a master to the Leiden Guild of St Luke and sets up his own art school: he called Frans van Mieris the Elder, the founder of a whole dynasty of Leiden painters, the “prince among his pupils”; he also taught Bartholomeus Maton, Matthijs Naiveu, Abraham de Pape, Domenicus van Tol, Gijsbert Andriesz Verbrugge and Pieter Hermansz Verelst. Dou preferred staying in his native city to an invitation to the court of Charles II in England, though he later worked for clients in Sweden.

9. Februar 1675

Died