Beautiful folio size antique photogravure print from the picture by Gerard Dou. (click thumbnails above for larger size image)
Printed on heavyweight cream stock. Plate mark present. Reverse side is blank.
It's hard to appreciate the stunning detail and clarity of this print until you see it in person.
The picture represents the interior of a handsome room lighted through the tiny panes of a high Gothic window, which is at the left of the picture and by a small round one immediately above it. Here, in front of the window-settle the sick woman lies back in her big chair, too ill so much as to look at her young daughter who kneels before her clasping her loosely hanging hand. Behind the mother is an elderly serving-woman leaning over her with a spoon in her hand.
More at the right of the picture, beside and in front of his patient, stands the doctor, in a brave purple silk robe, looking at a round glass flask of medicine. He is in profile, facing the window, so that he is mostly in full light. Every piece of furniture, every bit of carving, the thick brocaded portiËre that is looped up in front of the scene, the simple one drawn back on its rod at the window, the reading-desk with its big Bible, the hanging brass chandelier, catching the light on its polished sides, ó every bit of the surroundings of the scene is carried to the extreme point of finish Dou alone could accomplish. Yet the minuteness of execution does not take away from the pathos of that group whose centre is the sick mother.
Title: A Dropsical Woman
Publication: Great Masters in the Louvre Gallery
Publication Year: 1899-1900
Publisher: D. Appleton & Goupil & Co. (New York & Paris)
Approximate Page Size (in inches): 12½ x 16¾
Approximate Image Size (in inches): 10 x 13
Condition: EX. Very clean.
