# Young Girl at a Window Ledge [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [DOU, Gerrit]() - Date: 1651-1700 - Technique: Oil on panel, 33 x 25 cm ## Commentary Young Girl at a Window Ledge c. 1672 Oil on panel, 33 x 25 cm Private collection This panel depicts a young girl at a window ledge with a cat and a mouse-trap, a hung duck and a pewter ewer beside her. Dou's genre paintings are often imbued with subtle emblematic meanings which would certainly not have been lost on his public. In 17th-century paintings, and in particular in Dou's own work, certain everyday objects took on other meanings and were therefore chosen by the artist for a specific reason: a set of scales, for example, could allude to the virtues of moderation and temperance; an empty bird-cage was a conventional symbol of immorality; and the open mouse-trap and lascivious expression of the cat in this painting could equally have carried some erotic overtones. ## Related artworks - [A Fisherman's Wife]() - [A Soldier of the Leiden Civic Guard with an Arms Still-Life \(detail\)]() - [A Soldier of the Leiden Civic Guard with an Arms Still-Life]() - [An Evening School]() - [Astronomer]() - [Astronomer]() - [Cardplayers at Candlelight]() - [Girl at a Window]() - [Girl with Burning Oil Lamp]() - [Old Woman Praying]() - [Old Woman Reading a Bible \(detail\)]() - [Old Woman Reading a Bible]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()