Gerrit Dou was Rembrandt van Rijn’s first pupil, training with him in Leiden from the age of fourteen before developing the meticulous style for which he became renowned. His paintings are distinguished by their extraordinary precision and detail, and were prized by European collectors for their intimate scale and carefully staged settings. In 'The Physician', Dou presents a medical practitioner examining a flask of urine as part of the practice known as uroscopy, here to test for pregnancy. Dou used his own likeness for the physician, while the carefully arranged objects around him – including an open anatomy book, instruments and a celestial globe – evoke a world of medical knowledge and inquiry. The marbled earthenware flask is closely related to a seventeenth-century Italian vessel recently given to the Gallery (and exhibited nearby), offering a tangible link to the material world that Dou inhabited.

(Timeless: Treasures from the Historical Collection 19 September 2026 – 30 May 2027)