(Amsterdam 1621–1674)
A boy in the guise of Daifilo (from P. C. Hooft’s ‘Granida’),
signed and dated left of centre: G V eeckhout/ft 1642,
oil on canvas, 60.7 x 50.6 framed

Scher Collection, Bremen;
sale, Bolland & Marotz, Bremen, 9 October 2004, lot 399;
Private collection, Bavaria

Literature:
G. Isralov, Rembrandt et son entourage, in: La renaissance, July – September 1936, p. 34;
S. J. Gudlaugsson, Represantations of Granida in Dutch Seventeenth-Century Painting, in: The Burlington Magazine, XCI,1949, pp. 39ff.;
W. Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, II, Landau, 1983, p. 751, no. 535;
A. McNeil Kettering, The Dutch Arcadia, Pastoral Art and Its Audience in the Golden Age, New Jersey, 1983, p. 190.

The present painting of a boy in the role of the juvenile shepherd Daifilo from P. C. Hooft’s pastoral Granida, written around 1605, is one of the earliest known works by Van den Eeckhout. The broad brushwork and the subdued colours show the influence of Rembrandt, whose student Van den Eeckhout had been between 1635 and 1640. The contemplative atmosphere rendered here is characteristic of Rembrandt and the painters of his circle. Volker Manuth, the author of the catalogue raisonné on Van den Eeckhout, believes that the boy depicted here was probably one of the artist’s family members, which would account for the intimate and informal character of the scene.