Dow, or DOU, GERARD, Dutch genre-painter, was born at Leyden on 7th April 1613. He studied under Bartolomeus Dolendo, an engraver, and
Pieter Kouwenhoven, a glass-painter, and at the age of fifteen entered the school of Rembrandt. The influence of the last-named master is very visible in his Arundell picture of a scene from the life of Tobit. At first he mainly occupied himself with portraiture, but he soon turned to genre, treating, with extreme care, familiar subjects, small in scale, with few figures, and with little dramatic action. The most insignificant incidents of daily life were precious to Dow, and were delineated with the utmost delicacy, neatness, and care. The richness, transparency, vigour, and harmony of his colouring are beyond all praise, but his touch is minute, his way of work a little trivial, and wanting in the largeness and breadth which distinguish the productions of the greater genre-painters of Holland. His works, of which about 200 have been catalogued, are in all the great European collections. His own portrait, that of his wife, and 'The Poulterer's Shop,' are in the National Gallery, London; his celebrated 'Dropsical Woman' (1663) is in the Louvre, along with ten other examples of his art; the Amsterdam Museum contains five of his works, and the Dresden Gallery no fewer than sixteen. Dow died at Leyden in 1675.