1614 - GERARD THOMAS

GERARD THOMAS Interior with a Doctor, a Patient, and Various Figures Oil on canvas, 65.5 x 84 cm Gerard Thomas (1663–1721) was a Flemish painter of the late Baroque period who specialized in studio interiors and art galleries. He became a master of the Guild of Saint Luke in Antwerp in 1688–89 and served as its dean twice. Many of his paintings reflect a trend in Antwerp painting around 1700 that depicts artists in their studios, surrounded by paintings and sculptures, and teaching the craft to young apprentices. In this case, the painting depicts the interior of a physician-alchemist’s studio. The work, created around the early 18th century, is a fine example of his oeuvre: we see the doctor in the center examining a vial of urine, with a woman and a little girl beside him (a subject the painter depicted many times), an elderly woman, and two young apprentices. What makes these paintings special is the wealth of detail with which the painter enriches the setting, revealing a taste for depicting opulent, elegantly furnished bourgeois interiors that alluded to both the prosperity and the artistic sensibility of the wealthy patrons. Bibliography: See Fronia E. Wissman (ed.), Seventeenth-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings From the Collection of Hans Klenk, Schenectady, 1977.