Manner of Paulus Pietersz. Potter

With M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., New York;
Sigmund Ojserkis, New York;
By whom sold ("Paintings of the Ojserkis Collection, Deeded to the United Jewish Appeal (Inc.) for Refugees, and sold for their benefit"), New York, Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., May 24 1940, lot 40, for $160 to Wm. Plummer & Co.;
Frederick J. Cuthbertson, New York;
His sale, New York, Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., May 8, 1941, lot 36, for $210 to Jacques Léon Stern;
By his executors and heirs sold, New York, Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., November 3 - 4 1950, lot 30, for $1,200;
Marion Davies, Beverly Hills, California;
Her sale, New York, Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., November 14 1951, lot 41, for $2,250, to the present owner.

This Head of a Bull with its open mouth and lively eyes relates (in reverse) to the head of the standing bull in Potter’s famous The Bull, now in the Mauritshuis, The Hague, inv. no. 136.  Potter also made paintings of bull’s heads alone, and the present picture is very similar to at least one of these, formerly owned by the sculptor, Joseph Alexis Bailly, and known from an engraving.  That picture differs from the present Head in some details, such as the placement of the ear – the engraving shows only the ear on the front side of the bull’s head – and in the bull’s markings.