Gerrit Dou

Condition extremely good and fresh. Sold in a 17th-century Dutch-style dark wood frame
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Although quite a number of drawings have been attributed to Dou, none of these attributions are entirely secure; apart from the present, previously unrecorded sheet perhaps the most convincing is the drawing of an old lady ('the artist's mother'), in the Louvre, although that work, of 1638, would be significantly later than this study of an oriental.¹  Jan Jansz. Orlers recorded that Dou came to the 21-year-old Rembrandt as a pupil on 24 February 1628, and he is thought to have stayed in Rembrandt's studio until the master left for Amsterdam in 1631.  This was precisely the time when the young Rembrandt and his close associate Jan Lievens were experimenting in all media with 'tronies' - character heads just like this. 

In both mise-en-page and technique, there are considerable parallels with these early drawings and prints by Rembrandt and Lievens, although the technique of finely drawn portraits on vellum ultimately derives more from Goltzius and de Gheyn.  It is also an approach that exactly parallels Dou's later, meticulous style of painting.  These stylistic links, together with the presence of what seems to be a genuine signature, are strong arguments in favour of accepting this very fine drawing as an authentic, and possibly unique, early work by Dou.

1.  Paris, Louvre, Inv. 22579