Dirck Bouts

Bouts, Dieric
Bouts, Thierry

Netherlandish, c. 1415/1420 - 1475

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Shown from the waist up, a woman holds a nude infant in this vertical painting. Both have pale, peach-toned skin with brown eyes, faint eyebrows, and delicate features. The woman’s full, pink lips are closed, and she has a pointed chin. Her wavy, reddish-blond hair is parted in the middle and falls behind her shoulders. She wears a dark blue robe with a narrow gold border draped over her head and around her shoulders and body. She looks down at the child, to our right, which she holds in both long-fingered hands on a white cloth. The baby’s head is covered with a fine fuzz. He looks off to the left and grips the white cloth with the hand closer to the woman. His other hand rests on his round belly. The woman’s right hand wraps across one tiny leg, and the other foot stretches out over that wrist. The background is dark brown, and cracking on the painting’s surface is visible throughout.
Dirck Bouts, Madonna and Child, c. 1465, oil on panel, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 1986.67.1

Madonna and Child

Dirck Bouts · c. 1465 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1986.67.1

Shown from the waist up, a pale-skinned man is angled slightly to our right with his hands together in prayer in this vertical portrait painting. The man’s slightly bulging blue eyes lift to look up and to the right. Wrinkles line his forehead and the corners of his eyes and lips. His cheeks are hollow, and the temple we see slightly sunken. He has a long nose, bags under his eyes, and his thin lips are pressed together in a line over a pointed chin. Straight brown hair parts to either side of his high forehead and falls to just beneath his ears. His raspberry-red shirt has a high black collar, and a dark, burgundy red scarf drapes over his far shoulder. All of his fingertips touch except for the pinkies, which pass each other to make an X shape. The man is evenly lit against a brown background.
Anonymous Artist, Portrait of a Donor, c. 1470/1475, oil on hardboard transferred from panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.66

Portrait of a Donor

Anonymous Artist · c. 1470/1475 · oil on hardboard transferred from panel ·  Accession ID  1961.9.66

Bibliography

1924

  • Friedländer 1925, vol.3 (vol.3, 1968).

1938

  • Schöne, Wolfgang. Dieric Bouts und seine Schule. Berlin and Leipzig, 1938.

1986

  • Hand, John Oliver and Martha Wolff. Early Netherlandish Painting. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1986: 23.