Old Man in Prayer Contemplating a Skull,

1630–35

Perhaps under the influence of his compatriots Rembrandt and Jan Lievens, Jacques de Rousseau made something of a specialty of painting grizzled old men lost in thought. Light shining on the old man’s face and illuminating the bare wall behind heightens the emotional and spiritual character of the scene. Careful brushstrokes describe the man’s wiry, overgrown beard, while thick impasto models his rugged facial features. This painting has variously been called a Vanitas Allegory—an elderly man contemplating a skull would certainly have evoked the inevitability of death—and Saint Jerome, although he has no specific attribute such as the lion or cardinal’s hat typically associated with that saint. The painting is related to the images of generic hermits produced in great numbers by Rembrandt’s Leiden pupil Gerrit Dou and his followers. Such works may have functioned as a reminder of the importance of the contemplative life as a counterbalance to the active, material life.