Leading Christie’s “Old Masters Evening Sale” on December 2 in London is Gerrit Dou’s first depiction of a musician The Flute Player (ca. 1636).
The work, one of the few produced by Dou, carries a pre-sale estimate of £2 million to £3 million ($2.6 million–$4 million). That estimate puts it around half of Dou’s auction record, set in 2023 when A young woman holding a hare with a boy at a window brought in $7.1 million at Christie’s against a a $3 million–$5 million estimate.
The oil painting depicts a flautist seated and playing his instrument while gazing out directly at the viewer—a hallmark of Dou’s oeuvre that set him apart from his contemporaries. The sitter is surrounded by a number of worldly possessions, including a globe, books (one of which is open in front of him), an hourglass, and a violin, among other items. Each of these objects carries symbolic meaning, as is traditional in the Dutch vanitas still-life painting style that was common during the Dutch Golden Age in the early 17th century.
For his part, Dou was a student of Rembrandt’s who became one of the most successful Dutch artists of his time, with such patrons as Cosimo III de’ Medici, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, and the Dutch States General.
The Flute Player has been in an English collection for the last 125 years, once belonging to William Proby, Fifth Earl of Carysfort (1836–1909) at Elton Hall and passing through a line of descents.
“The unwavering interest in Dou’s paintings across the centuries is confirmed by this work,” Maja Markovic, head of the Old Masters evening sale in London, said in a statement. “Its appearance on the market for the first time in well over a century offers a new generation of collectors the opportunity to acquire an early masterpiece by an artist whose extraordinary command of the brush continues to mesmerise viewers today just as it did connoisseurs four centuries ago.”
