53 x 53 cm

10.05.2026

We’ve met Gerrit Dou before. 

The master of the still life, the great lover of detail, the forensic portraitist of the minutiae of the world. 

His visual trademark was setting his subjects inside a niche or frame, creating a living painting of them, that then became a painting itself. A constant play of the depicted and the real, of schijn zonder zijn – appearing without being – as his amazed contemporaries used to say of his art. 

Here, we feel Gerrit’s hand at work. The modest vase of white flowers sits inside a classical frame, luring us in, intriguing us, despite its simplicity. All is purity and innocence. White roses, aquilegias,

heady jasmine, effusive spray roses, a few stems of Japanese anemone and a tiny white strawberry flower before the fruit has come. Even the digitalis, the treacherous foxglove, looks the picture of innocence in this celebration of white. 

Around the base of the vase, some petals have just dropped. A fleeting glance of a fleeting moment, blurring in our eyes and minds the image with the real flowers until we almost think we can smell their glorious fragrance.