Search results

Start typing

This exhibition is in the past. View our current exhibitions.
GERRIT DOU (LEIDEN 1613-LEIDEN 1675)

The Grocer's Shop

Signed and dated 1672

Oil on panel, arched at top | 41.5 x 32.0 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 405542

In this densely packed late work, Dou fuses realism and artifice. A naturalistic, light-filled Dutch grocer’s shop is seen through a beautifully contrived stone frame, with fictive relief in the style of seventeenth-century sculptor François Duquesnoy, known for his portrayals of putti. Objects are conveniently arranged along the stone ledge in the foreground, seeming to lean out of the painting and into the real world. It is as if the painting is itself a shop window.

Acquired by George IV in 1817, when Prince Regent

    The income from your ticket contributes directly to The Royal Collection Trust, a registered charity. The aims of The Royal Collection Trust are the care and conservation of the Royal Collection, and the promotion of access and enjoyment through exhibitions, publications, loans and educational activities.