A Hermit

A Hermit is an oil painting on oak panel by Dutch Golden Age painter Gerrit Dou, created c. 1661.

It depicts a monkish figure, of very old age, surrounded by symbols of vanitas (skull, candle, hourglass), which serve as a reminder of the brevity of human life.

He looks at the viewer, as he leafs through the Bible open in front of him.

[1] The painting is in the Wallace Collection, in London.

[2] This article about a seventeenth-century painting is a stub.