Dutch painter, Gerrit Dou (1613-1675) was born in Leiden, and based himself there throughout his career. As Rembrandt 's first pupil, from 1628, he was initially influenced by his master. However, once Rembrandt had left for Amsterdam, in the early 1630s, Dou developed his own meticulous manner, which perhaps reflected his father's skill, and his own early training, in glass engraving. The most characteristic of the resulting paintings are small-scale, highly-detailed representations of domestic interiors. Dou was a founder of the Guild of St Luke in Leiden (1648), and the originator of the local tradition of the fijnschilder (fine painter), which was perpetuated through his pupils on into the nineteenth century. Only then did the tradition in general, and Dou's work in particular, begin to go out of fashion. Ruskin undoubtedly contributed to this change of fortune, though his direct reference to Dou seems to have been very limited.