Head of a Boy in a Turban

Gerrit Dou was Rembrandt’s first pupil. He took up his master’s idea of studying black people. The result was this endearing tronie of a young man in a fantasy costume, who looks at us over his shoulder. Tronie is a common type, or group of types, of works common in Dutch Golden Age painting and Flemish Baroque painting that shows an exaggerated facial expression or a stock character in costume. Recent research has clarified a great deal about the black residents of 17th-century Amsterdam. From around 1630 to 1660 there was a small black community around the Jodenbreestraat, in Rembrandt’s neighborhood. The men were sailors. The women worked as servants or rented out rooms. Sometimes they earned a little on the side as extras in stage plays, or perhaps as models for artists.