Support The coarse, plain-weave canvas has been glue-lined. Cusping is present on all sides and is most clearly visible at the bottom and only vaguely at the top.
Preparatory layers The single, warm grey ground extends up to the edges of the canvas. It consists of white pigment and evenly dispersed, fine black pigment particles and occasional large, opaque, pale yellow pigment particles.
Underdrawing Infrared photography revealed a thin underdrawing in what appears to be a liquid medium, most clearly along the mother’s mouth and chin line.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the canvas. The composition was built up from the back to front and from dark to light. An initial, loose sketch in earth colours, browns for contours and red shades for modelling, has remained visible in a few places, especially in the background scene. The thin, dilute, dark background was applied with reserves for most of the thicker, opaque and lit compositional elements, with the exception of the pitcher. The transitions were carefully closed. The ground shimmers through in the thinly executed parts and in the reds of the bed curtain, tablecloth and the mother’s jacket. In thick, illuminated areas, the paint skips and scumbles over the coarse weave. Hatching and cross-hatching were employed throughout to add detail, as well as some stippling, as can be seen in the lit parts of the curtain in the foreground. The paint application in the lighter, opaque areas is blended and laboured. Highlights are heavily impasted. Blue, red and dark brown glazes were used for some of the final contour lines. Infrared images reveal small adjustments to the position of the blue drapery over the cradle and to the chair in the foreground which at first was placed slightly more to the right.
Gwen Tauber, 2009

Fair. The paint layer has been flattened by lining and has an even craquelure throughout. There are numerous small losses in thicker areas, a repair and related overpaint to the left of the mother’s head, and traction cracks in the dark upper layers and in the glazes. The paint surface is abraded along the top of the weave.

For both the present centre section (SK-A-2320-A) and the wings (SK-A-2320-B and C)
…; sale, Pieter Willemsz Calkoen (1712-1780), Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 10 September 1781, no. 75 (‘In Naavolging van Gerard Douw. Nr. 75. Hoog 32, breed 27½ duim [82.2 x 70.7 cm.] Eene bevallige Dame, zittende voor een overkleede Tafel in een ryk gemeubeleerde Binnekamer, zy, naar den ouden tyd en mode in een geel Satynen Rok met Zilver Doorwerkt, en een Jakje van Purper Fluweel met Hermelyne randen gekleed, is bezig om een Kind, dat zy uit de Wieg die naast haar staat, heeft genoomen, de borst te geeven. In ’t verschiet, ziet men een Chirurgyns Winkel, daar eene Operatie aan een Boer gedaan wordt, een Vrouw agter hem staande schynt bedroefd; ter regter zyde van de meester staat zyn Knegt aandagtig, op ’t geen ’er verrigt word te letten. […] Het is voorzien van twee van elkander openstaande deuren, welker binnezyde verbeeld een School by het Kaarslicht: op de eene deur is een Meester bezig zyne Leerlingen in het reekenen te onderwyzen; en op de andere ziet men een Pennesnyder verbeeld. Het Stuk waarvan het bovenstaande eene uitmuntende naavolging is, berustte weleer in het beroemde Cabinet van wylen den Heer Gerrit Braamcamp, en wierd daar uit voor haare Rus Keizerlyke Majesteit op den 31 July 1771, voor de Somma van f 14100- gekogt. Dog is, nevens nog eenige andere Schilderstukken, door ’t stranden van ’t Schip, waar in dezelve geladen waaren, in de Finsche scheeren verongelukt’), fl. 960, to W. van der Vuurst¹¹Copy RKD. C. Bille, De tempel der kunst of het kabinet van den heer Braamcamp, II, Amsterdam 1961, p. 95.…; collection Pieter van Winter (1745-1807), Amsterdam;²²Six 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, nos. 48-49. J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, IX, London 1842, pp. 9-10, nos. 28-30, states that the painting was in the Six Collection. his daughter, Lucretia Johanna van Winter (1785-1845), Amsterdam;³³Six 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. 275; 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. pp. 124, 224, no. 16. 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, with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt, 1908⁴⁴Provenance reconstructed in 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, nos. 48, 49.

Object number: SK-A-2320-A

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

Gerrit Dou’s most famous work, a secular triptych, is known only from a copy in the Rijksmuseum by the eighteenth-century German artist Willem Joseph Laquy (1738-1798), of which this Lying-In Room is the centre section and the outer panels are The Night School and Man Sharpening a Quill (see SK-A-2320-B and SK-A-2320-C; also fig. a). It was called an ‘outstanding imitation’ at an auction in 1781.⁸⁸See Provenance (‘uitmuntende naavolging’). Laquy was taught at the Amsterdam Drawing Academy in the second half of the 1760s and was taken under the wing of the collector Gerrit Braamcamp, who gave him the opportunity to study his art cabinet and make copies after it.⁹⁹C. Bille, De tempel der kunst of het kabinet van den heer Braamcamp, I, Amsterdam 1961, pp. 46-47. For biographical information on Laquy see R. van Eynden and A. van der Willigen, Geschiedenis der vaderlandsche schilderkunst, sedert de helft der XVIII eeuw, II, Haarlem 1817, pp. 275-83; U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, XXII, Leipzig 1928, p. 379; J.W. Niemeijer, Hollandse aquarellen uit de 18de eeuw in het Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, exh. cat. Paris (Institut Néerlandais)/Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1990-91, p. 92, Braamcamp’s pride was the triptych by Dou, which he had managed to acquire in Paris at the 1763 Samuel Bernard sale.¹⁰¹⁰On which see Bille, De tempel der kunst of het kabinet van den heer Braamcamp, I, Amsterdam 1961, pp. 39-41. Laquy made several copies of it; see G. Korevaar, ‘Willem Joseph Laquy Copies Gerrit Dou: ... of very great service in the further shaping of his knowledge and taste’, The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 59 (2011), pp. 135-51, for Laquy’s activities with Braamcamp. It was known as The Lying-In Room at the time and was bought together with some other works from Braamcamp’s collection by Catherine II of Russia in 1771, but was lost in a shipwreck in the Baltic. Laquy must therefore have made his copy of the triptych between 1763 and 1771, but in view of the high quality of the central scene in particular, a more precise date of around 1770 seems appropriate.¹¹¹¹G. Korevaar, ‘Willem Joseph Laquy Copies Gerrit Dou: ... of very great service in the further shaping of his knowledge and taste’, The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 59 (2011), pp. 135-51, esp. p. 139. See ibid., esp. pp. 139-40, for all the known copies of the triptych made by Laquy.

The match between the dimensions of Laquy’s triptych when closed and those given by Houbraken in his detailed discussion of the original shows that the copy was made very nearly in full size.¹²¹²The central section with the present Lying-In Room measures 83.6 x 70 cm, whereas A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, II, Amsterdam 1719, p. 5, gives the original’s dimensions as ‘height 3 feet, and width 2 feet 6 inches’ (84.8 x 72 cm). See also the entry in the sale catalogue of the Braamcamp cabinet of 31 July 1771: ‘Height 32, width 27½ inches’ (82.2 x 70.7 cm). The only change that Laquy made was to turn the arched top into a rectangle. Adjustments to the chair in the left foreground of The Lying-In Room show that he shifted the positions of some elements. There are no known copies after the outsides of the wings, which had depictions of the liberal arts in grisaille, painted, according to Houbraken, by an otherwise unidentified artist called Coxie.¹³¹³A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, II, Amsterdam 1719, p. 5. Jan Anthonie Coxie (after 1650-1720), who worked briefly in Amsterdam between 1700 and 1705, was mentioned as a likely candidate by P. Hecht, ‘Gerrit Dou’s Braamcamp Triptych Reconsidered: A Skeptical View of its “Allegorical” Meaning’, in C.P. Schneider, W.W. Robinson and A.I. Davies (eds.), Shop Talk: Studies in Honor of Seymour Slive, Presented on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday, Cambridge 1995, pp. 100-02, esp. p. 101.

There is a striking difference in quality between the central section, which is on canvas, and the wings, which are panels. Whereas an attempt was made to match Dou’s technique in The Lying-In Room, the execution of The Night School and Man Sharpening a Quill bears very little resemblance to his manner. Quite apart from the standard in the imitation of textures, the design of the faces and the layering of the paint are not at all compatible, yet there are technical similarities that point to the same hand at work.¹⁴¹⁴See Technical notes.

In addition to a watercolour of The Lying-In Room and another one of the scene with the dentist in its background,¹⁵¹⁵RP-T-1918-326 and RP-T-1910-22 respectively. the Rijksmuseum has two chalk drawings after the wings,¹⁶¹⁶RP-T-1910-24 (The Night School) and RP-T-1910-23 (Man Sharpening a Quill). all four of them by Laquy. In the case of Man Sharpening a Quill he added Dou’s signature on the lectern and the date 1671.¹⁷¹⁷RP-T-1910-23. Infrared images show that both were initially also included by Laquy in his copy but were then painted over. This tells us that Dou’s original triptych was executed around ten years later than is generally assumed.¹⁸¹⁸W. Martin, Gerard Dou: Des Meisters Gemälde in 247 Abbildunge, Stuttgart/Berlin 1913, p. 93, and E. de Jongh, Tot lering en vermaak: Betekenissen van Hollandse genrevoorstellingen uit de zeventiende eeuw, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1976, p. 91, date it around 1660. J.A. Emmens, ‘Natuur, onderwijzing en oefening: Bij een drieluik van Gerrit Dou’, in J. Bruyn et al. (eds.), Album discipulorum aangeboden aan Professor Dr. J.G. van Gelder ter gelegenheid van zijn zestigste verjaardag, Utrecht 1963, pp. 125-36, esp. p. 128, note 9, mentions Martin’s dating but does not discuss it. His Old Schoolmaster Sharpening his Quill in Dresden, which is related to the right wing of the triptych, is also dated 1671.¹⁹¹⁹Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister; illustrated in W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, I, Landau/Pfalz 1983, p. 592, no. 295. Dou revisited earlier subjects of his in several pictures from this period, among them the night school, the dentist and the man sharpening his quill.²⁰²⁰Baer 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. 134. That makes the triptych a summation of typical works from Dou’s oeuvre in which he displayed his choice of themes, painterly illusionism, famed rendering of textures and celebrated lighting effects with verve. Unfortunately, it is not known for whom he made this sample of his mastery.

Martin said in 1901 that there was no relationship between the content of the three scenes,²¹²¹W. Martin, Het leven en de werken van Gerrit Dou beschouwd in verband met het schildersleven van zijn tijd, diss., Leiden University 1901, p. 77. but Emmens interpreted the work in a pioneering study as an allegory of the three prerequisites for acquiring knowledge.²²²²See J.A. Emmens, ‘Natuur, onderwijzing en oefening: Bij een drieluik van Gerrit Dou’, in J. Bruyn et al. (eds.), Album discipulorum aangeboden aan Professor Dr. J.G. van Gelder ter gelegenheid van zijn zestigste verjaardag, Utrecht 1963, pp. 125-36. The interpretation in E. de Jongh, Tot lering en vermaak: Betekenissen van Hollandse genrevoorstellingen uit de zeventiende eeuw, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1976, pp. 90-93, is based on Emmens’s. According to Houbraken on the Aristotelian trio in his biography of Michiel van Musscher, ‘three things are required for the attainment of knowledge: Nature [talent], Teaching and Practice, and no fruits can be expected unless Practice is joined to Nature and Teaching’.²³²³A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, III, Amsterdam 1721, p. 211. It is not clear whether this meaning can indeed be attached to Dou’s triptych, and, if it can, whether Laquy totally failed to grasp it. In any event, not a word is said about it in the earliest references to the painting.²⁴²⁴Emmens’s interpretation was met with scepticism by P. Hecht, De Hollandse fijnschilders: Van Gerard Dou tot Adriaen van der Werff, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1989-90, p. 63, note 10, and P. Hecht, ‘Gerrit Dou’s Braamcamp Triptych Reconsidered: A Skeptical View of its “Allegorical” Meaning’, in C.P. Schneider, W.W. Robinson and A.I. Davies (eds.), Shop Talk: Studies in Honor of Seymour Slive, Presented on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday, Cambridge 1995, pp. 100-02.

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2026

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

For both the present centre section (SK-A-2320-A) and the wings (SK-A-2320-B and C)
W. Martin, Het leven en de werken van Gerrit Dou beschouwd in verband met het schildersleven van zijn tijd, diss., Leiden University 1901, p. 232, no. 304a; C. Bille, De tempel der kunst of het kabinet van den heer Braamcamp, I, Amsterdam 1961, pp. 46-47; ibid., II, p. 95; J.A. Emmens, ‘Natuur, onderwijzing en oefening: Bij een drieluik van Gerrit Dou’, in J. Bruyn et al. (eds.), Album discipulorum aangeboden aan Professor Dr. J.G. van Gelder ter gelegenheid van zijn zestigste verjaardag, Utrecht 1963, pp. 125-36; P. Hecht, ‘Gerrit Dou’s Braamcamp Triptych Reconsidered: A Skeptical View of its “Allegorical” Meaning’, in C.P. Schneider, W.W. Robinson and A.I. Davies (eds.), Shop Talk: Studies in Honor of Seymour Slive, Presented on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday, Cambridge 1995, pp. 100-02; G. Korevaar, ‘Willem Joseph Laquy Copies Gerrit Dou: ‘… of very great service in the further shaping of his knowledge and taste’, The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 59 (2011), pp. 135-51, esp. pp. 135-42

For both the present centre section (SK-A-2320-A) and the wings (SK-A-2320-B and C)
1909, p. 368, nos. 798a-c; 1976, p. 198, no. A 2320

Gerbrand Bikker, 2026, 'copy after Gerrit Dou and Willem Joseph Laquy, Triptych of the Acquiring of Knowledge: The Lying-In Room (centre section), c. 1770', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20027807