Support The copper plate has a pink and purplish coloration on both the front (as seen at paint losses) and the reverse, possibly due to patination. There is a graphite sketch of two figures in the centre of the reverse.
Preparatory layers The single, thick, smooth, ochre-coloured ground extends up to the edges of the support. It consists of carbon black, orange, brown and translucent pigment particles, fine earth pigment particles and some white pigment particles, and a minute addition of bright red and yellow pigment particles. A line of slight fluorescence (seen under UV illumination in a cross-section of a paint sample) between the ground and paint layers may indicate an application of a pure medium, possibly oil.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye, infrared photography or infrared reflectography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the support. Rather loose brushwork visible beneath the paint surface at the lower right in the grisaille frieze might be part of an initial undermodelling. The composition was built up from the back to the front and from dark to light, using reserves that were meticulously closed with overlapping paint, as is the case, for example, in the lower left of the glass vial. Details were applied with numerous fine brushstrokes and small dabs of paint, and highlights on the clothing were indicated with delicate hatching. The marbled texture of the jug was created by the superimposition of two or three layers of carefully executed swirl forms beginning with white and followed, after drying, by red. Infrared reflectography revealed that the pail hanging from the woman’s arm was planned somewhat more to the right at first, and that the doctor’s raised hand was initially positioned slightly higher and further to the right.
Gwen Tauber, 2010

Fair. The copper plate has moderate undulations overall. An uneven, bright green layer, visible at the base of the cross-section of the paint sample taken, may be the result of a chemical reaction between the copper and the (oil) medium which was found between the ground and paint layers. The paint surface has a pebbly texture. Minute, circular traction cracks are apparent in the background paint below the arch. There are old, minute paint losses throughout.

…; ? anonymous sale, Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 9 April 1783, no. 54, as Johan van Staveren (‘19½, breed 14 dm [50.1 x 36 cm]. Kooper. Dit uitnemend fraaije Cabinetstuk verbeeld, voor een steene Nis een staande Doctoor in zyn Studeer-vertrek hy scheint zeer andagtig als met verwondering het Water van een Patient te beschouwen, het geen hy in een Urinaal in desselfs linkerhand vasthoud, agter hem staat een bedrukte Vrouw houdende een Emmertje aan den Arm, die al schreijende naar het lot der Zieken schynt te hooren, ter regterzyde op de lyst der Nis, staat een opengeslaagen Churigicaal Boek, en een konstige gewerkte Kan, waar neevens een Kooper bekken op een fraai gewerkt Tapytje, het geen gedeeltelyk afhangt over een keurlyk Basrelief van Kindertjes die met een Bok speelen, van boven in de Ronte van de Nis hangt een opgeschooven Gordijn, […] zynde alles volmaakt in de manier van G. DOU behandeld.’), fl. 970, to Sluys;…; sale, Josephus Augustinus Brentano (1753-1821), Amsterdam (J. de Vries et al.), 13 May 1822, no. 320, as Johan van Staveren (‘hoog 4 palmen, 9 duimen; breed 3 palmen 6 duimen [49 x 36 cm]. Paneel. Door eene Nis, met een Basrelief van spelende kinderen versierd, ziet men eenen Doctor in zijn studeervertrek, met aandacht een urinaal beschouwende, hetwelk hij in de linkerhand heeft; achter hem staat eene oude Vrouw in eene bedrukte houding; op den rand der nis ligt een ontleedkundig boek bij eene konstig bewerkte kan. De uitvoering van het penseel is in dit stuk te bewonderen, en staat schier gelijk aan de beste schilderijen van Gerard Dou.’), fl. 1,280, to the dealer De Vries;¹¹Copy RKD.…; ? anonymous sale, London (Edward Foster), 11 April 1831, no. 94, as Johan van Staveren (‘A Water Doctor’), 14 gns;²²GPI, Br-13446.…; collection Pieter van Winter (1745-1807), Amsterdam, as Gerrit Dou;³³Six Archives, Amsterdam, V-F-II V 2, Tauxatie van het kabinet schilderyen nagelaten door wylen den weledlen heer P. van Winter Nsz., 31 January 1815; see R. Priem, ‘The ‘Most Excellent Collection’ of Lucretia Johanna van Winter: The Years 1809-22, with a Catalogue of the Works Purchased’, Simiolus 25 (1997), pp. 103-235, esp. p. 219, no. 47). his daughter, Lucretia Johanna van Winter (1785-1845), Amsterdam;⁴⁴Six Archives, Amsterdam, VIII-F-3 I D, Verdeeling schilderyen tusschen Lucr.a Joh.a v.Winter en haar zuster A L A. van Winter 20 Dec. 1815 getr. met Willem van Loon, fl. 155; see R. Priem, ‘The ‘Most Excellent Collection’ of Lucretia Johanna van Winter: The Years 1809-22, with a Catalogue of the Works Purchased’, Simiolus 25 (1997), pp. 103-235, esp. p. 224, no. 130. her husband, Jonkheer Hendrik Six (1790-1847), Lord of Hillegom, Amsterdam; his sons, Jonkheer Jan Pieter Six (1824-1899), Lord of Hillegom, and Jonkheer Pieter Hendrik Six (1827-1905), Lord of Vromade; from whose heirs, with 38 other paintings, fl. 751,400, to the museum, as Johan van Staveren, with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt, 1908

Object number: SK-A-2321

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

This painting is probably identical to a Doctor that was auctioned in 1783 as a work by Johan van Staveren. It was later also listed as such in the collection of Josephus Augustinus Brentano.⁸⁸See Provenance. The compiler of the sale catalogue did qualify the attribution by adding ‘everything being perfectly handled in the manner of G. Dou’, which shows that he did not realize that he was dealing with a faithful copy of one of Gerrit Dou’s signed versions dated 1653 in Vienna and Moscow.⁹⁹Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum; illustrated in A.K. Wheelock Jr (ed.), Gerrit Dou 1613-1675: Master Painter in the Age of Rembrandt, exh. cat. Washington (National Gallery of Art)/London (Dulwich Picture Gallery)/The Hague (Mauritshuis) 2000-01, p. 139. Moscow, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts; illustrated in M.S. Senenko, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts: Collection of Dutch Paintings XVII-XIX Centuries, coll. cat. Moscow 2009, p. 103. The attribution of the latter is not undisputed; see ibid., p. 103. M. Poch-Kalous, Katalog der Gemäldegalerie: Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Wien, coll. cat. Vienna 1972, p. 25, lists two more copies. The fact that the relatively unknown Van Staveren was named as the artist led to the assumption that the attribution was based on a reliable verbal tradition.¹⁰¹⁰Sluijter in E.J. Sluijter, M. Enklaar and P. Nieuwenhuizen (eds.), Leidse fijnschilders: Van Gerrit Dou tot Frans van Mieris de Jonge, 1630-1760, exh. cat. Leiden (Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) 1988, p. 267. That, in fact, is the only argument for assigning the painting to him, which makes it therefore highly dubious. The extremely close similarities in structure and technique between Van Staveren’s model and the copy indicate that the latter must have been made with the original in direct view. One major difference between the two is that the prototype is on panel and the copy is on copper. Van Staveren had already been active for some 15 years as an independent artist when this copy was painted shortly after Dou’s original of 1653. The high standard of the former, which perhaps looks a little harsher than the model because of the metal support, is difficult to square with that usually displayed by Van Staveren. That difference in quality is well illustrated by a comparison between the hands of the figure in his Hermit near a Ruin of around 1656¹¹¹¹SK-C-228. and those of the doctor. In addition, there are no known copies after Dou by Van Staveren.

All in all there is good reason to reject the traditional attribution, as was proposed in the Rijksmuseum’s 1976 collection catalogue.¹²¹²See Collection catalogues. The absence of a signature and the harsher execution appear to rule it out as an autograph work by Dou. Since the copyist went to great lengths to imitate his painting technique, as can be seen in the rug, the texture of the vase and the placing of highlights on the clothing in the form of hatchings, it is impossible to identify the maker on the basis of style. Interestingly, at the bottom of the page of the opened anatomy book on the window ledge, which is Vesalius’s De humani corporis fabrica libri septem of 1543, there is the monogram ‘AB’. It is not there in Dou’s original and cannot be associated with an artist from his circle.

On the back of the copper plate there is a rough graphite sketch of a standing figure on the left bending forward and extending a hand to the face of a seated figure, which might possibly be a preliminary design for a scene of a tooth extraction (fig. a). It is too cursory for a specific attribution, but it is nevertheless interesting that the draughtsmanship exhibits some similarity to a composition sketch on the recto of a hermit praying by the young Frans van Mieris I.¹³¹³Frankfurt, Städel Museum; illustrated in O. Naumann, ‘Frans van Mieris as a Draughtsman’, Master Drawings 16 (1978), pp. 3-34, esp. pl. 8b. He was the most talented of the artists around Dou in the mid-1650s, and was certainly active in his studio before 1658, and probably even before 1655,¹⁴¹⁴R. Baer, ‘The Life and Art of Gerrit Dou’, in A.K. Wheelock Jr (ed.), Gerrit Dou 1613-1675: Master Painter in the Age of Rembrandt, exh. cat. Washington (National Gallery of Art)/London (Dulwich Picture Gallery)/The Hague (Mauritshuis) 2000-01, pp. 26-52, esp. p. 45, note 46. in other words in the period immediately after Dou’s Doctor of 1653. Dou himself very rarely worked on copper, but it is remarkable in this context that in 1657 Van Mieris did so in two versions of his Doctor’s Visit, which embroiders iconographically on Dou’s Doctor.¹⁵¹⁵Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum; Glasgow, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. See O. Naumann, Frans van Mieris the Elder (1635-1681), II, Doornspijk 1981, pp. 22-23, no. I 20, pl. I 20, pp. 23-24, no. II 20, pl. II 20. On the support see Wolfthal in M.K. Komanecky (ed.), Copper as Canvas: Two Centuries of Masterpiece Paintings on Copper, 1575-1775, exh. cat. Phoenix (Phoenix Art Museum)/Kansas City (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art)/The Hague (Mauritshuis) 1998-99, pp. 238-40. O. Naumann, Frans van Mieris the Elder (1635-1681), 2 vols., Doornspijk 1981, passim, mentions ten paintings by Van Mieris on copper. It cannot be proved, but it is possible that Van Mieris had a hand in the original when he was an apprentice in Dou’s studio in the mid-1650s.¹⁶¹⁶Otto Naumann does not consider this likely; written communication, 2010.

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2026

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Sluijter in E.J. Sluijter, M. Enklaar and P. Nieuwenhuizen (eds.), Leidse fijnschilders: Van Gerrit Dou tot Frans van Mieris de Jonge, 1630-1760, exh. cat. Leiden (Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal) 1988, pp. 266-67, no. 98 (as Johan van Staveren [?] after Gerrit Dou)

1920, p. 131, no. 799a (as Johan van Staveren); 1976, p. 198, no. A 2321 (as copy after Gerrit Dou)

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2026, 'workshop of Gerrit Dou, The Doctor, c. 1653', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200108951