Bust of a Bearded Man

In this intimate portrait, a bearded man with piercing eyes gazes to his right, his weathered face brightly illuminated against his dark beret. Bright accents enliven his eyes and help model his forehead and cheek bones, while similar highlights define the folds of his open shirt and articulate the strands of his grey hair. Dou's expressive brushwork and detailed handling of paint bring an extraordinary vigor and animation to this wonderful image. This work was once believed to represent Dou's father—a romantic notion that has since been proven wrong by a confirmed image of him with a darker beard and rounder face.

Dou's small oval panel is an outstanding example of a tronie, a type of figure study popular among Dutch artists. Among them, Rembrandt van Rijn, Dou's teacher, made many of these studes in the early to mid-17th century. Dou made tronies of both young and old models, though he favored the old, because their time-worn faces seemed to convey notions of wisdom and experience. Tronies were often sold as independent works, but they were also commonly used by artists as studies for their own genre and history paintings.

Credit: Corcoran Collection (William A. Clark Collection)