1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Eeckhout, Gerbrand van den

EECKHOUT, GERBRAND VAN DEN (1621–1674), Dutch painter, born at Amsterdam on the 19th of August 1621, entered early into the studio of Rembrandt. Though a companion pupil to F. Bol and Govaert Flinck, he was inferior to both in skill and in the extent of his practice; yet at an early period he assumed Rembrandt’s manner with such success that his pictures were confounded with those of his master; and, even in modern days, the “Resurrection of the Daughter of Jairus,” in the Berlin museum, and the “Presentation in the Temple,” in the Dresden gallery, have been held to represent worthily the style of Rembrandt. As evidence of the fidelity of Eeckhout’s imitation we may cite his “Presentation in the Temple,” at Berlin, which is executed after Rembrandt’s print of 1630, and his “Tobit with the Angel,” at Brunswick, which is composed on the same background as Rembrandt’s “Philosopher in Thought.” Eeckhout not merely copies the subjects; he also takes the shapes, the figures, the Jewish dress and the pictorial effects of his master. It is difficult to form an exact judgment of Eeckhout’s qualities at the outset of his career. His earliest pieces are probably those in which he more faithfully reproduced Rembrandt’s peculiarities. Exclusively his is a tinge of green in shadows marring the harmony of the work, a certain gaudiness of jarring tints, uniform surface and a touch more quick than subtle. Besides the pictures already mentioned we should class amongst early productions on this account the “Woman taken in Adultery,” at Amsterdam; “Anna presenting her Son to the High Priest,” in the Louvre; the “Epiphany,” at Turin; and the “Circumcision,” at Cassel. Eeckhout matriculated early in the Gild of Amsterdam. A likeness of a lady at a dressing-table with a string of beads, at Vienna, bears the date of 1643, and proves that the master at this time possessed more imitative skill than genuine mastery over nature. As he grew older he succeeded best in portraits, a very fair example of which is that of the historian Dappers (1669), in the Städel collection. Eeckhout occasionally varied his style so as to recall in later years the “small masters” of the Dutch school. Waagen justly draws attention to his following of Terburg in “Gambling Soldiers,” at Stafford House, and a “Soldiers’ Merrymaking,” in the collection of the marquess of Bute. A “Sportsman with Hounds,” probably executed in 1670, now in the Vander Hoo gallery, and a “Group of Children with Goats” (1671), in the Hermitage, hardly exhibit a trace of the artist’s first education. Amongst the best of Eeckhout’s works “Christ in the Temple” (1662), at Munich, and the “Haman and Mordecai” of 1665, at Luton House, occupy a good place. Eeckhout died at Amsterdam on the 22nd of October 1674.