Ferdinand Bol Dordrecht 1616 - 1680 Amsterdam

Lady Vyvyan;
By whom sold, London, Christie's, June 28, 1935, lot 103, where acquired by F. Sabin for £294;
With Frank T. Sabin, London, 1936;
With Daniël Katz, Dieren;
M.H. Prance, Branch Hill, Hampstead, London; 
Sale Viscount Bollingbroke et. al. (anon. sect.), London, Christie's, December 10, 1943, lot 147 (as "Portrait of the artist"), where acquired by Mendelssohn for £178;
Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, January 23, 1953, lot 120,  where acquired by Vander Kar;
J. de Mul;
By whom sold, Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, October 13-14, 1953, lot 317, reproduced;
Collection, J.F. Minken, London, by 1954;
Private Collection, The Netherlands.

Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Oude Kunst, 1936, no. 14;
Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, Rembrandt och hans tid; Rembrandt and his Age, October 2, 1992 - January 6, 1993, no. 73.

Ferdinand Bol was a member of Rembrandt's studio from 1637 until about 1642 and remained under his influence for the rest of his career.  His earliest signed and dated portraits are from 1642, and some two years later he began a series of male tronies or anonymous figures in exotic dress (see lot 6).  The Man with a Book is one of the handsomest of the group with his thin face and dashing moustache. 

This is one of a small group of works that ultimately derive from Rembrandt's Self Portrait of 1640, now in the National Gallery, London.¹  As in Rembrandt's painting, the sitter is clad in what appears to be a doublet, with a fur collar, and wears a flamboyant black beret.  In the present work, Bol changes the pose slightly so he is not resting his forearm on a ledge, but props his elbow on the desk as he fingers a chain that goes through his collar.  The effect of the gesture is to bring him more into himself, so that he lacks the complete self confidence that was evident in Self Portrait.  His greater diffidence and the surrounding books suggest that Bol is depicting a scholar in his study, a themepopular in the sixteenth century and in Rembrandt's studio as well.

1  Rembrandt's self portrait in turn refers back to Titian's Portrait of an Unknown Man, also in the National Gallery, London, and Raphael's Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione in the Louvre.