This engaging portrait possibly shows David Leeuw who would have been about eight years old in 1640. He was related to the artist and was the son of a wealthy businessman and art collector. The full-length pose and the boy’s fashionable dress indicate that he is the heir to wealth and position.
Flinck was a pupil of Rembrandt in the mid-1630s. The landscape, with its low horizon, brooding sky, and dominant brown colours, recalls those of his master.
Inscriptions / Translations: Signed and dated l.r.: G. Flinck. f 1640
Notes: Exhibited: 'Dutch painting of the seventeenth century', Ferens Art Gallery, Kingston upon Hull, UK, June 1961, no. 26; 'Govert Flinck', Städtisches Museum Haus Koekkoek, Kleve, Germany, 04 July 1965 - 26 September 1965, no. 43; 'The Rembrandt Tercentenary', Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA, 1969, 21 October 1969 - 07 December 1969, no.62; 'The Rembrant Tercentenary', Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, 29 December 1969 - 01 February 1970; 'The Rembrandt Tercentenary', The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan, USA, 24 February 1970 - 05 May 1970; 'Art in Seventeenth Century Holland', National Gallery, London, UK, 30 September 1976 - 12 Decemeber 1976, no. 42; 'Flinck and Bol', Amsterdam Musuem, Amsterdam, 13 October 2017 - 18 February 2018
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