Gerard Dou (Dutch: 1613-1675). See 192.
This picture, as an acknowledged chef d'œuvre of the master, has long been celebrated. It was purchased by Sir Robert Peel from the Fonthill Collection in 1823 for £1270. Mrs. Jameson, on seeing the picture at Sir R. Peel's, wrote: "All executed with such a nicety of touch—such an inconceivable truth and minuteness of imitation—as to render the picture a very miracle of art. A higher merit consists in the admirable painting of the heads, especially that of the old woman, which is full of life." "A wicker market-basket is a common homely thing, but look at its presentment here—every polished, well-used twig of it following the true undulations of form and colour, light and shade, through the marvellous patience and skill of the vanished Dutchman—and see if it does not produce an exquisite poetic tremor by the thoughts it evolves. There is a dead image of the barnyard cock which Mr. Darwin may compare with the barndoor fowl of to-day as accurately as if it were photographed. His once fiery eye is glazed and sightless as a dim pearl, his neck feathers ruffled but no longer in anger or pride; his pale, amber-coloured legs helplessly and ingloriously reversed, their impatient and masterful scratching among his dames in the stubble over for ever; the glossy purples, greens, and blacks of his tail-feathers rising sharp and delicate out of the speckled hazes of colour which it required days and days to lay side by side among the crushed and crowding plumes. The cock, the horologe of Thorpe's light, crows no more to the answering hill-farms. He is destined for the spit of the housewife who holds up the hare. But his fate was glorious, for by what tens of thousands since the year 1650 or thereabouts have his perfections been admired and praised. It was worth living for, and, to chanticleer, worth dying for, to become the occasion of such a miracle of art" (Smetham's Literary Works, p. 240).
826. FIGURES AND ANIMALS.
827. FORDING THE STREAM.
828. LANDSCAPE WITH CATTLE.
Karel du Jardin (Dutch: 1622-1678).
This painter was the ablest of the followers of Nicolas Berchem, and like that master often painted Italian scenery. He stayed for some years in Rome, where his pictures were greatly admired, and where, in the jovial artist circles of the day, he was given the nickname of "Barbe de Bouc" (goat's-beard). On his return from Italy he is said to have stayed some time at Lyons, where he married a widow with whom he afterwards settled in Holland. He resided at the Hague from 1656 to 1659, and there was much influenced by the example of Paul Potter. He next moved to Amsterdam, which he made his home for some years. He returned in the end to the Italian haunts of his early years, and died at Venice. In his best pastoral works, the truth and finish of his execution, the brilliancy of their atmosphere, and the harmonious colouring, are attractive. He also painted portraits and large groups, and executed some good etchings.
It has been said of Du Jardin that his works are "excellent when they are not detestable," a remark which is well exemplified in these pictures. No. 827 is at once vulgar in incident and unpleasant in colour. No. 826, on the other hand, one of the pastoral idyls for which Du Jardin is famous, is a chef d'œuvre of the painter (Sir Robert Peel paid 930 guineas for it). No. 828 has a true Italian air, and there is a touch of almost pathetic humour in the contrast between the cow and the woman. It is the beast that has its eyes on the sunset and enjoys the benediction of the evening hour. The woman is cumbered with much serving, and spins with her back to the light.