DOUFFET, Gérard

Flemish painter. He was trained in Liège in the late Mannerist tradition of Jean Taulier. He is said to have worked in Rubens’s studio in Antwerp in 1612-14, but this seems very doubtful since a painting dated 1615 is quite unlike Rubens. A ‘Gerardo Fiammingo’ is recorded in Rome between 1615 and 1623, who cannot be identified as either Gerrit van Honthorst or Gerard Seghers, since both had already returned north, it is thought therefore that this might be a reference to Douffet. He must have moved in the circles of Bartolomeo Manfredi and Nicolas Tournier and known other northern artists in the city such as Dirck van Baburen and David de Haen. He can be documented with certainty in Valentin de Boulogne’s studio in 1620-22 and it has been suggested that the two artists collaborated on the Taking of Christ with the Malchus Episode at around this time.

In the winter of 1622-23 Douffet was living penniless in Venice and by the spring he returned to Liège. Pictures such as his 1627 Visit of Pope Nicholas V to the Tomb of St Francis (Alte Pinakothek, Munich) are typical of the type of restrained Caravaggism that he introduced to his home city.

In 1634 he became the official painter to the Prince-Bishop of Liège, Ferdinand Wittelsbach of Bavaria. His later work, although sometimes still strongly modeled, is less expressive, less Italianate and rather repetitious.