{"id":279928,"date":"2025-11-24T03:09:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T03:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/279928\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T03:09:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T03:09:16","slug":"offered-for-the-first-time-in-125-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/279928\/","title":{"rendered":"offered for the first time in 125 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a room with little empty space. A terrestrial globe<\/a> and two large books rest on the table. Behind the musician, a violin hangs on a wall, and a host of other objects can be seen on shelves \u2014 revealed by a curtain that has been pulled to one side.<\/p>\n

By packing the scene so full, Dou showcased his skill at capturing a variety of materials, textures and reflections with great realism. In the top-left alone, one can pore over the fabric of the curtain, the wood grain of the violin, the flaking of the plasterwork by the window, and the cracks in some of the panes.<\/p>\n

Dou\u2019s approach to painting proved influential. He went on to found the school of Leiden-based artists known as the Fijnschilders (literally \u2018fine painters\u2019), who specialised in smallish-scale, minutely detailed paintings like The Flute Player. These artists included Frans van Mieris the Elder<\/a> and Gottfried Schalcken<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From early in his career, Dou received an annual stipend of 500 guilders from the Swedish ambassador to the Dutch Republic, Pieter Spiering. This was simply for the privilege of having first refusal when the painter made a new work. Spiering was a keen art collector himself, though he also seems to have acquired works by Dou for Queen Christina in Stockholm.<\/p>\n

In 1660, after the ambassador\u2019s death, two pictures by the artist \u2014 one of which has been identified as The Young Mother<\/a>, today part of the Mauritshuis\u2019s collection in The Hague \u2014 were included in the \u2018Dutch Gift\u2019. This was a selection of paintings, sculptures and furniture sent by the Dutch to Charles II as a present, to mark the restoration of England\u2019s monarchy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a room with little empty space. A terrestrial globe and two large books rest on the table.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[114539,6225,6485,6486,114543,90482,1120,114538,96,114541,114536,86496,114540,114537,56,54,55,114542],"class_list":{"0":"post-279928","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-17th-century-art","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-british-collectors","13":"tag-christies-auction","14":"tag-design","15":"tag-dutch-painting","16":"tag-entertainment","17":"tag-fijnschilders","18":"tag-gerrit-dou","19":"tag-leiden","20":"tag-symbolic-art","21":"tag-the-flute-player","22":"tag-uk","23":"tag-united-kingdom","24":"tag-unitedkingdom","25":"tag-vanitas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}