Old Woman Watering a Plant

This old woman watering a plant from around 1644 is a characteristic Dou window-niche composition featuring a solitary elderly woman absorbed in a simple domestic task. The act of tending a plant — watering it with careful attention — was a subject that elevated domestic labor into a image of patient nurturing, and the window setting created the characteristic boundary between interior domesticity and the exterior world. Dou's elderly women engaged in domestic tasks were among his most popular subjects with collectors: they combined his technical mastery of aged faces and varied textures with the moral approval attached to images of industrious domestic virtue.

The plant, watering vessel, and stone window ledge are rendered with Dou's trademark precision, creating a convincing trompe-l'oeil effect that invites the viewer to reach into the pictorial space.